(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Natalia Antonova, Kristen Blyth – July 22, 2013) Even for Muscovites who aren’t very much into politics, the September mayoral elections are about to get interesting. The surprising five-year sentence for opposition candidate Alexei Navalny – and the equally shocking decision to free him the very next day pending appeal – has both exacerbated political […]
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Johnson’s Russia List :: 2013-#132 :: 22 July 2013 E-Mail: davidjohnson@starpower.net A project of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs: www.ieres.org JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php POLITICS 1. Interfax: More than half of Russians would like to work […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Irina Filatova – July 22, 2013) The fight against tax evasion by multinational corporations and measures to ensure recovery amid the global economic turbulence came into the limelight at the two-day meeting of Group of 20 finance ministers that finished in Moscow on Saturday. Finance ministers and central bank governors of the world’s 20 biggest […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Richard Solash – WASHINGTON, July 20, 2013) It’s not every 22-year-old that gets a meeting at the White House with U.S. President Barack Obama’s national security adviser — and shows up for it in peach-colored knee-high socks. Meet Vera Kichanova, a young woman whose hipster garb belies her maturity, and whose fresh complexion has become one […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, July 22, 2013) More than one in three Russians think the influx of people of “other ethnicities” is a very likely threat to national security, more so than terrorism or environmental disasters, according to a poll published Monday. Such an influx was cited as a “very real” threat by 35 percent of those surveyed by […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 20, 2013) Public service looks attractive to 55% of Russians, although 22% believe public officials have to agree to compromises with their conscience, a nationwide public opinion poll conducted by www.superjob.ru has shown. ‘Stable salary and powers,’ ‘maximum salary and minimum efforts – public service is a dream for any idler’, ‘you can take large bribes […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW. July 22, 2013) Head of the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill regards the recognition of same-sex marriages in Western countries an omen of the end of the world. “Lately we have been facing enormous temptations when in a number of countries the choice of sin is approved and justified by law, and those who do as their […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 22, 2013) U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul has declined claims that the Embassy allegedly takes no interest in former CIA employee Edward Snowden. “We have communicated our concerns clearly and frequently to the Russian government,” he wrote on Twitter in reply to a statement by Russian Public Chamber member, lawyer Anatoly Kucherena who alleged insufficient […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Ksenia Galouchko & Vladimir Kuznetsov – July 22, 2013) The conviction of Alexey Navalny, a political opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, highlights risks faced by investors as they weigh whether to buy assets in the world’s biggest energy exporter. Russia, which earned about $350 billion from oil and gas exports last year, has a Baa1 […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 19, 2013) Moscow Bar Association President Henri Reznik has called the release of opposition activist Alexei Navalny from custody with travel restrictions the day after his incarceration unprecedented. “I must tell you I cannot recall a similar situation. I cannot remember a single case of a prosecutors’ objection to the measures chosen by a court after […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, July 22, 2013) The Kremlin’s spokesman on Monday said President Vladimir Putin had played no role in opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s sudden release from jail last week. Navalny, who is running for mayor of Moscow, was taken into custody Thursday upon being sentenced to five years in prison for masterminding a 2009 embezzlement scheme that […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko & Oleg Sukhov – July 22, 2013) Opposition leader Alexei Navalny, unexpectedly freed by a Kirov court a day after being jailed on embezzlement charges, got a hero’s welcome from hundreds of supporters when his train arrived in Moscow over the weekend, and he immediately announced that he would pursue his long-shot bid […]
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Johnson’s Russia List :: 2013-#131 :: 19 July 2013 E-Mail: davidjohnson@starpower.net A project of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs: www.ieres.org JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php POLITICS 1. RIA Novosti: Tanks, Days Off, Abortions: 24 Things Russia Gives […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 10, Issue 132 – Pavel Felgenhauer – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – July 18, 2013) Edward Snowden, the contractor who worked as a systems administrator at a US National Security Agency (NSA) facility in Hawaii, arrived in Moscow from Hong Kong on June 23, apparently planning to fly to Havana the next day, but has stayed […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Michael Bohm, Opinion Page Editor of The Moscow Times – July 19, 2013) When Edward Snowden, with the assistance of his curators in the Russian government, held his makeshift news conference last Friday in Sheremetyevo Airport’s transit zone, it was no surprise that pro-Kremlin opinion makers dominated the short, invitation-only list of attendees. Among them […]
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(Interfax – July 19, 2013) The arms control report of the U.S. Department of State does not help create an atmosphere of trust or make real progress in non-proliferation and arms control issues, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. “In fact, the new report gives an impression that the United States is stuck in the vise of Cold War propaganda although […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Katerina Ryzhakova, Toma Genole, special to RBTH – July 18, 2013 – Toma Genole is a political scientist and professor at the Paris Institute of Political Sciences. Katerina Ryzhakova is a communications consultant.) Outdated stereotypes served by the mass media leave Europe with an often inaccurate and incomplete image of Russia, which in […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Panin – July 19, 2013) The Federal Property Management Agency is urging banks to give out loans to investors ready to purchase government assets as part of a new scheme to stimulate privatization, which has been slow to take off. The loans provided by the banks will be backed by the privatized companies’ shares, […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – July 19, 2013) The Federal Tax Service has accused election watchdog Golos of not paying 2.28 million rubles ($70,200) in income taxes in 2009-10 on funding it received from USAID, in what rights activists see as the latest in a string of state attacks on independent observers. Auditors from Tax Inspectorate No. 9 concluded that […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Robert Coalson – July 18, 2013) Opposition politician and anticorruption blogger Aleksei Navalny got all the press during the nearly four months of his trial. But he was not alone in the dock, as he took pains to point out during his closing remarks on July 5. “First, I would like to take this opportunity to […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, July 19, 2013) A hundred and twenty years after his birth and 83 years after his suicide, literary rebel-cum-Communist Vladimir Mayakovsky remains one of modern Russia’s most popular poets, according to a new poll. Mayakovsky is the second most popular Russian poet of the 20th century, according to a poll by the Levada Center published […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, July 17, 2013) What do these three things have in common: tanks, abortions and instant coffee? They are all things that Russia exports, performs or consumes more than any other nation. Esquire magazine’s Russian-language edition on Monday released a list of 24 things for which Russia is a statistically proven world leader. One standout is […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Ben Aris in Moscow – July 19, 2013) The Kremlin was hit with what is like to be a serious of extremely expensive bills following the conviction of opposition blogger Alexei Navalny to five years in jail on corruption charges by a court in Kirov on July 19. Russia’s stock market tanked as the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Irina Filatova – July 19, 2013) The Russian stock market reacted pessimistically Thursday following the ruling of a regional court that sentenced opposition leader Alexei Navalny to five years in prison for embezzlement. The sentence is widely believed to be another blow to Russia’s image and is likely to result in an a more dramatic […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, July 18, 2013) Russian human rights commissioner Vladimir Lukin hopes that the appeal will lead to a serious change in the sentence given to opposition activist Aleksey Navalnyy, whom a court in Kirov jailed for five years. “I have no right to comment on the political aspect of the events. However, there will, most likely, be an […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 18, 2013) Gleb Pavlovsky, a political analyst and head of the Efficient Politics Foundation, considers opposition activist Alexei Navalny’s conviction a mistake and believes this will only cause his popularity to grow. “Navalny made a lot of mistakes in the past. But in the past month, during the trial, Navalny has behaved very correctly, politically speaking. […]
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(Interfax – KIROV, July 19, 2013) Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny has said he will make a final decision regarding his further participation in the Moscow mayoral race after he returns to Moscow and consults with his election campaign coordinators. “This decision will be made after I return to Moscow and we discuss everything,” Navalny said, answering a question from […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, July 19, 2013) The head of one of the world’s largest transport companies, state-owned Russian Railways, this week dismissed as unfounded corruption allegations made against him by opposition protest leader Alexei Navalny, Prime news agency reported. In a blog post earlier in the week, Navalny published details of property and offshore companies that he claims are […]
» Read more(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 18, 2013) The Russian opposition will try to take advantage of Alexei Navalny’s conviction in pursuing its political ends, but protests against this will not be very significant, says Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin political analyst and a member of the Public Chamber. “Some actions have been prepared and will be held, but they will be very […]
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Johnson’s Russia List :: 2013-#130 :: 18 July 2013 E-Mail: davidjohnson@starpower.net A project of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs: www.ieres.org JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php POLITICS 1. New York Times: Russian Court Convicts Opposition Leader. 2. www.russiatoday.com: […]
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(Alexey Eremenko, RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, July 18, 2013) This week, a little-known Russian business consultant named Pyotr Ofitserov finally took his eldest daughter on a long-promised visit to Moscow’s famed Tretyakov Gallery. They squeezed in the outing between errands on Tuesday afternoon, as Thursday Ofitserov expects to be jailed for up to five years. “It’s funny how much […]
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(Interfax – July 19, 2013) Seventy percent of Russians have heard the “blogger” word but 29 percent do not know what it means, the Russian Public Opinion Study Center (VTsIOM) said in the presentation of a poll conducted in 42 regions on July 6-7. A third of the respondents (33 percent) could name some of the Russian bloggers. Twenty percent […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Tatyana Lisina, RBTH – July 17, 2013) According to data from the World Bank, Russia’s economy has jumped ahead of all the European nations, becoming the fifth largest worldwide in terms of GDP. Experts are confident that, in the future, the gap between the Russian Federation and the Old World will widen further. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – July 18, 2013) A court in Perm has ruled not to punish local nongovernmental organization Grany Center for refusing to register as a “foreign agent,” a news report said Thursday. Prosecutors had asked the court to find Grany Center guilty of violating the controversial law passed in November requiring all groups that receive foreign funding […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – July 18, 2013) The number of Russians willing to participate in street protests has declined since its 2011 peak, a new poll from Levada Center shows. Only 11 percent of respondents would join political protests, while 16 percent would rally for social issues, Gazeta.ru reported Thursday. Sampling 1,601 adult Russians in 130 population centers throughout […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, July 18, 2013) Russian public figures and foreign diplomats on Thursday weighed in on the five-year jail sentence handed down to anti-Kremlin activist Alexei Navalny, with opinions ranging from grim pessimism among liberals and “disappointment” from the U.S. ambassador to mixed forecasts by economic analysts and claims of a fair trial by pro-Kremlin pundits. – […]
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Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2013 From: Sergei Roy <SergeiRoy@yandex.ru> Subject: Will Russia Fall Apart? Will Russia Fall Apart? By Sergei Roy [former Editor-in-Chief, Moscow News] 1. In his book The Grand Chessboard Zbigniew Brzezinski replies to the question in the title of this article unequivocally yes, it certainly will, quite inevitably. In fact, he drew a sort of road […]
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(RIA Novosti, The Moscow News – themoscownews.com – July 18, 2013) Russia’s stock market fell sharply on Thursday according to Moscow Exchange data, after investors took in the news that opposition blogger Alexei Navalny had been found guilty in a controversial fraud trial and sentenced to five years in jail. The court in the city of Kirov, about 900 kilometers […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, July 18, 2013) Alexei Navalny, the opposition leader and anti-corruption campaigning blogger who was handed a five-year-jail term on Thursday, is to withdraw his candidacy for the upcoming election for Moscow mayor, his campaign office said. Navalny’s campaign office will proceed with canceling his registration for the early Moscow mayoral vote, scheduled for September 8, […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 18, 2013) The sentence of opposition activist Alexei Navalny is affecting the interests of small and middle-sized businesses and will lead to the outflow of young lawyers and businessmen from Russia, leader of the Civil Platform party Mikhail Prokhorov said. “The sentence passed on Alexei Navalny and Pyotr Ofitserov is not just a sentence to the […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 18, 2013) The Russian presidential Human Rights Council will conduct an independent public analysis of the criminal case in which a Kirov court sentenced opposition activist Alexei Navalny to five years in prison on Thursday. “I have already talked with a number of Council members. I believe the Council will decide to arrange a public legal […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 18, 2013) Russian senators said they proposed waiting for a superior court ruling on the case of opposition activist Alexei Navalny, sentenced in Kirov to five years, and that if there was a political component in the trial, then only that Navalny’s violations had been checked in priority. “It is not a fact that superior agencies […]
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(Interfax – TBILISI, July 18, 2013) Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili plans to continue his political career in Georgia after his second presidential term expires. “Georgia is a very small country, where the same recognizable persons will always continue replacing each other. Obviously, no one will disappear, and all of these people will be present in the government and in politics,” […]
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(Kremlin.ru – July 17, 2013) [excerpt re: Snowden] QUESTION: Mr President, I want to ask about [Edward] Snowden. What happened with [Bolivian President Evo] Morales showed that the White House will stop short of nothing in this case. Aren’t you worried that it might jeopardise the upcoming Russian-American summit? Also, it seems that the biggest question now is how you […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Henry Meyer, Irina Reznik & Jason Corcoran – July 17, 2013) When Russian agents stormed the downtown offices of the Skolkovo technology hub being built near Moscow on April 18, a startled Intel Corp (INTC). executive got caught up in the raid. Dusty Robbins, head of global programs for the world’s largest chipmaker, was forced to […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtime.com – Anatoly Medetsky – July 17, 2013) President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday again said the Cabinet was slacking off. He blamed ministers for getting behind schedule in executing measures to develop the country’s Far East. “I’ll tell you what, dear friends, will you ever get to work or not? What is this?” Putin said, according to […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – MOSCOW BLOG – July 17, 2013) Russia passed an important milestone on July 15, overtaking Germany to become the biggest economy in Europe in terms of purchasing power parity and the fifth biggest in the world. This achievement comes on top of the World Bank’s decision a week earlier to upgrade Russia from a […]
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(Interfax – KAZAN, July 16, 2013) Historians and history teachers, not bureaucrats, should decide how Russian history should be taught to Russian students, said Sergei Naryshkin, the Russian State Duma’s speaker and president of the Russian Historical Society. “Experts in history have wisely asked the Russian Historical Society to provide guidelines for teaching history as a subject, which will be […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – RFE/RL’s Russian Service – July 16, 2013) Amid an apparent split in the ranks, the feminist punk performance-art group Pussy Riot has released a new music video lashing out at the oil industry; Igor Sechin, the head of Russia’s largest oil company Rosneft; and others. Copies of the video were released to RFE/RL on July 16 […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, July 17, 2013) Russians do not view the opposition as an alternative to those in power but rather as “an additional” but very weak “channel of communication” between themselves and the authorities, according to a new study prepared by the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The basic conclusions […]
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