MOSCOW, January 23 (RIA Novosti) President Vladimir Putin has nominated an outspoken Kremlin critic as Russia’s next ombudsman. Putin told rights activists Tuesday that he would formally nominate Ella Pamfilova, former head of the Kremlin human rights council, to the post after a meeting with her. No date was set. Pamfilova, 60, has not commented on the prospective appointment […]
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MOSCOW, January 23 (RIA Novosti) Photos of Russian President Vladimir Putin striding manfully through the countryside with his shirt off have over the years drawn much admiration and ridicule, as well as suspicion they were posed public relations stunts aimed at showing the leader in macho mode. But a Kremlin spokesman tried to scotch such speculation in an interview […]
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(Government.ru – January 22, 2014) Dmitry Medvedev sat for an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. Christiane Amanpour: Let me start by asking you about the Sochi Olympics. This is a moment of great pride for Russia, great anticipation for the world’s athletes. And yet you have a major security threat and major security alert that your government and security forces […]
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(Kremlin.ru – January 22, 2014) PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN: Good afternoon, everyone, The main reason for this meeting is to congratulate you on the upcoming holiday. As one would write in official documents, I want to congratulate you and in your person all of Russia’s students. I wish you the very best in your studies and your future careers. […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Nikolay Surkov, RBTH – January 22, 2014) Russian minister describes the 2013 year in Russian foreign policy successes and challenges. In a January 21 press conference, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov summarize the results of 2013’s major foreign policy issues, including the crisis in Syria, the relationship with Washington, and Ukraine’s volatile […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Anna Arutunyan, Editor – January 22, 2014) Is there a double standard in how the West responds to violence in Ukraine? Or is the issue more complicated? The United States has threatened possible sanctions against Ukrainian authorities after new violence erupted Sunday on Kiev’s streets, where anti-government demonstrators set a police bus on fire and […]
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MOSCOW. Jan 22 (Interfax) – The Russian State Duma has called on the West not to worsen the situation in Ukraine through interfering in its internal affairs and urged the Ukrainian opposition to start a dialogue with the government. “The State Duma is calling on Western political circles, which are interfering in the sovereign Ukraine’s internal affairs in violation of […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anatoly Medetsky – January 22, 2014) A report on Russian regions at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday will call on the country’s policy makers to attempt four key improvements for business. The measures are painfully familiar, but the report seeks to trigger implementation rather than surprise with startling solutions, said Alexander Ivlev, […]
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(RIA Novosti – January 23, 2014) Russia is planning to introduce mandatory fingerprinting for all foreigners applying for visas to the country. Under the terms of a draft presidential decree posted online Thursday, the Foreign Ministry will launch a pilot project in July to test the necessary equipment and procedures. The project envisions fingerprinting of foreigners at Russian embassies and […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Matthew Bodner – January 22, 2014) The World Economic Forum, the annual gathering of global business and political leaders taking place in Davos, Switzerland this week has played host to a number of interesting Russia-related events. In 1996 a group of Russian oligarchs devised a scheme that saved President Boris Yeltsin from certain defeat in […]
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MOSCOW, January 22 (RIA Novosti) Russia experienced zero growth in industrial output in 2013, Trade and Industry Minister Denis Manturov said Wednesday, according to Russia’s Prime economic news agency. But the figure represented a slight recovery at the end of 2013, following a contraction in output earlier in the year. “According to forecasts, by the end of the year […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Natalia Antonova – January 23, 2014) Dear readers, the print edition of The Moscow News has been shut down by order of the management. The January 23 issue, which came out today as part of Moskovskiye Novosti, was our last print publication until further notice. Our website remains active, and we will continue bringing you […]
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(“Russia’s Growing Regional Debts Threaten Stability is republished with permission of Stratfor” – January 20, 2014) Editor’s Note: The following is the first installment of a three-part series on growing debt for Russia’s regional governments. Summary Since the 2009 financial crisis, the Kremlin has allowed Russia’s regions to take the brunt of the country’s economic decline in order to keep […]
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[check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List :: 2014-#15 :: 23 January 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 […]
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[check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List :: 2014-#14 :: 22 January 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 […]
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TBILISI. Jan 21 (Interfax) – Diplomatic relations with Russia cannot be restored as long as 20% of the Georgian territory is occupied and Moscow recognizes the independence of two Georgian regions, Georgian Foreign Minister Maia Panjikidze told reporters on Tuesday. She made her comment on the opinion of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who said Georgia’s refusal to recognize the […]
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(Business New Europe KYIV BLOG – bne.eu – January 21, 2014) Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych doesn’t concede the right of the protestors on Maidan to demonstrate. The protestors on Maidan don’t concede that Yanukovych is their democratically elected leader, voted in by the people in 2010. This clash has led directly to the escalating violence in Kyiv. The opposition leaders […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Andrei Ilyashenko, special to RBTH – January 21, 2014) Syria’s opposition group’s inability to come to a united understanding threatens to delay the start of the peace conference. In making any predictions about GenevaII, the Syrian peace conference that opens on January 22 in Montreux, Switzerland, no degree of caution would be supererogatory. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – January 21, 2014) Real estate specialists say its necessary to head 60 kilometers beyond the MKAD to find quality low cost dachas. If you are dreaming of your own summer cottage in the Russian countryside, now might be the time to start shopping, as real estate specialists report prices on Moscow dachas and land plots […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anatoly Medetsky – January 21, 2014) In a country like Russia, where a fair share of consumer goods come from abroad, the government’s efforts to move to a more flexible exchange rate for the domestic currency could rattle retailers and restaurants big time. Real estate brokers and others dealing in big-ticket items are also concerned. […]
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TULA. Jan 21 (Interfax) – The Future Research Fund should not chase rainbows and have scientific and technological illusions in the selection of projects it will support, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. He added that the Fund “should be looking over the horizon.” “It is important to avoid straight repetition of even promising solutions in the selection of projects. As […]
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(Kremlin.ru – January 16, 2014) Vladimir Putin met with designers of a new concept for teaching Russian history. Taking part in the meeting were State Duma Speaker and Chairman of the Russian Historical Society Sergei Naryshkin, Presidential Aide Andrei Fursenko, Education Minister Dmitry Livanov, Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky and representatives of the academic, education and expert communities. —– Speech at […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Natalya Krainova – January 21, 2014) The number of Russian orphans and abandoned children has dropped from 140,000 to a little under 107,000 in the past five years, due to state policies encouraging domestic adoptions, children’s ombudsman Pavel Astakhov said Monday. Following the controversial ban on U.S. adoptions that took effect in January 2013, the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – January 21, 2014) Investigators have summoned opposition leader Boris Nemtsov for questioning over complaints that his report about supposed tax-dodging by 16 pro-Kremlin lawmakers in Yaroslavl had violated their privacy, Nemtsov said. A United Russia deputy from the Yaroslavl regional legislature, Mikhail Krupin, had demanded that investigators charge Nemtsov with “disclosure of confidential information” over […]
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MOSCOW, January 21 (Alexey Eremenko, RIA Novosti) Russian authorities cracked down on civil society and minorities in 2013, the Human Rights Watch rights group said in an annual report released Tuesday. The report, the 24th of its kind, cited as a prime example Russia’s recent law on “foreign agents” that tightened rules for NGOs involved in vaguely defined “political […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Aleksei Mazur – January 18, 2014) Aleksei Mazur is a political columnist for the site Tayga.info. He writes on civic and political life in the Siberian regions and also on the problems of urbanism in Novosibirsk. He has also appeared in the national press and has several publications on politics. During the late 1980s and early 1990s he […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Marina Obrazkova, RBTH – January 21, 2014) The leader of the revolution has turned into an ordinary historical figure for younger Russians. Today’s generation of Russians have rather mixed feelings when it comes to the leader of the Bolshevik Revolution. The issue of burying Lenin’s body, which is still kept in a mausoleum […]
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MOSCOW, January 22 (RIA Novosti) After last year’s explosions in the southern Russian city of Volgograd, the majority of Russians doubt that the authorities can protect them from new terrorist attacks, an independent pollster said Tuesday. According to a poll conducted by Levada Center, only 29 percent of Russians are convinced that the authorities can protect them from terrorist […]
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MOSCOW. Jan 22 (Interfax) – Members of the Pussy Riot punk band Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina intend to visit U.S. prisons. “We are going to visit several U.S. prisons (including a maximum security prison for women) in the state of New York with a team in early February. As local political activists told us, the prisons are most severe […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Delphine d’Amora – January 22, 2014) President Vladimir Putin touted public-private partnership, as a means for revitalizing the threadbare public health care system at a meeting with top ministers Tuesday. The sector clearly demands investment, but simply raising the rates that individuals and companies pay into the state’s obligatory medical insurance fund is not an […]
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MOSCOW, January 22 (RIA Novosti) A bill that would have branded Russian media outlets that receive more than 50 percent of their funding from abroad as “foreign agents” was withdrawn from consideration in the State Duma on Tuesday. The bill’s authors said they had decided to reintroduce the legislation at a later date with a lower threshold for qualification […]
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NOVO-OGARYOVO, January 22 (RIA Novosti) Russia’s population showed natural growth of 22,650 people last year despite a declining birthrate, the country’s health minister said Tuesday. The mortality rate over the first 11 months decreased by 19,000 deaths compared with the same period in 2012, while the birth rate dropped by only 919 births, Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova said in […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Dmitry Travin – January 22, 2014) Dmitry Travin is Research Director at the European University in St. Petersburg’s Centre of Modernization Studies. Global attention is focused on Russia’s hosting of the Winter Olympics, a PR coup for President Putin. But all is not well on the economic front and the scenario the Russian government will probably choose going […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – January 22, 2014) Russians should not keep their savings in rubles, as the currency is likely to depreciate, the head of the Banking Institute at the Higher School of Economics Vasily Solodkov said. “From now on, ruble exchange rate fluctuations against dollar and euro will be far more significant,” newspaper Argumenty i Fakty quoted Solodkov […]
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(Interfax – January 22, 2014) An overwhelming majority of Russians (76 percent) know about Moscow’s decision to give a loan to Ukraine and to cut natural gas prices, the Russian Public Opinion Study Center (VTsIOM) said referring to a January poll held in 42 regions. Most respondents explained the decisions of Moscow with the wish to preserve friendship with Kyiv […]
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(Interfax – January 22, 2014) The Russian special services have nothing to do with the flight of former CIA employee Edward Snowden, who has been granted temporary asylum in Russia, Snowden’s lawyer Anatoly Kucherena told Interfax on Wednesday. “All these conversations about the FSB [Russian Federal Security Service] involvement in some special operation related to Edward and his deeds are […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, January 16, 2014) The need to design a single Russian history textbook has arisen because there are many teaching aids containing “ideological junk”, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. “The most important thing was that, under the system of certification of, let us say, teaching materials that went to schools, there occurred things that were absolutely unacceptable not […]
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MOSCOW. Jan 21 (Interfax) – The “anti-terrorist” package of bills will not restrict citizens’ rights and is aimed at preventing the financing of organized crime, Irina Yarovaya, chairman of the State Duma committee on security and corruption prevention, said. “Our logic is to propose additional measures for ensuring collective security measures. We want to disarm terrorists and deprive them of […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – January 21, 2014) The Justice Ministry has denied registration to opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s People’s Alliance political party, citing the existence of another organization with the same name. People’s Alliance members said they were planning to meet with Justice Ministry officials on Tuesday to discuss the government’s repeated rejections of their movement’s registration requests, Itar-Tass […]
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MOSCOW. Jan 20 (Interfax) – The head of Russia’s top criminal investigation agency has proposed bringing back a law recommending the confiscation of the property of people convicted of corruption. “This is the most effective sanction for preventing corruption,” Investigative Committee chief Alexander Bastrykin said in an interview with Russian government daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta to appear in the paper’s issue […]
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(Interfax – January 21, 2014) Russian human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin said a decision on the transfer of the body of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin from the mausoleum and the elimination of the necropolis on the Red Square may be made in the nearest future. “The Red Square is not a place for a cemetery. A decision on this matter […]
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MOSCOW, January 20 (RIA Novosti) Russian President Vladimir Putin’s electoral rating rose in December, returning to 2000s levels, a new opinion poll by the independent Levada Center showed. Asked whom they would vote for if a presidential election took place next Sunday, 68 percent of respondents said they would vote for Putin, up 10 percent from figures in December […]
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MOSCOW. Jan 21 (Interfax) – A total of 78% of Russian citizens think that the issues of terrorism should be resolved solely by liquidating terrorists, the All-Russia Public Opinion Research center (VTsIOM) said, citing a poll held in January. In 2002, 70% of respondents shared this stance. Only 15% of Russians think that it is necessary to negotiate with terrorists, […]
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MOSCOW, January 21 (RIA Novosti) American military assets have been offered to bolster security for the upcoming Sochi Olympic Games scheduled to open in less than three weeks, the Pentagon said Monday. “Air and naval assets, to include two Navy ships in the Black Sea, will be available if requested,” press secretary Rear Admiral John F. Kirby said in […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Robert Coalson – January 21, 2014) Security forces in the Black Sea Russian city of Sochi are looking for a woman from the North Caucasus whom they believe might be planning a terrorist attack during next month’s winter Olympic games. Officials are distributing photos of 22-year-old Ruzanna Ibragimova, reportedly the widow of an alleged North Caucasus […]
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Johnson’s Russia List :: 2014-#12 :: 20 January 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: Putin: Holding on to Power By All Means […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Des Brown – January 20, 2014) British historian and journalist Sir Max Hastings has penned volumes chronicling World War II, Korean War and Falklands War. His latest work, “Catastrophe: Europe Goes to War 1914,” recounts the events of the first year of World War I and was published in September 2013, in time for this […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Ben Aris in Moscow – January 20, 2014) With a little bit of luck, Russian IPOs could make a comeback in 2014, say bankers, after investors appetite was whetted last year. After almost five years of inactivity due to fears of a second wave of the crisis, 2013 saw several successful Russian IPOs get […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anatoly Medetsky – January 20, 2014) Russian delegates at this week’s World Economic Forum in Davos could have to field uneasy questions about the country’s economic slowdown at a time when Western economies are regaining their confidence. Russia’s economic aid to Ukraine is also likely to surface during discussions at the Swiss alpine resort, in […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Vladimir Kozlov, special to RBTH – January 19, 2014) From portraits to fridge magnets to video games, Putin’s image has become a commercial venture. Portraits of Russian President Vladimir Putin are staples in the offices of state officials of various ranks across the country. But his images can be also found on various […]
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