(RIA Novosti – Moscow, May 8, 2013) The first visit of US Secretary of State John Kerry to Russia has not been a breakthrough, nor has it led to a new “reset” in relations between Moscow and Washington, according to experts interviewed by RIA Novosti. According to them, in the run-up to a meeting between the presidents of Russia and the USA on the sidelines of the G8 summit in
(RIA Novosti – Carl Schreck – WASHINGTON, May 9, 2013) It’s a mere three seconds of stock footage in the critically acclaimed Cold War television series “The Americans,” a nighttime panorama showing Moscow’s renowned Christ the Savior Cathedral as a US counterintelligence official explains that a top KGB officer is about to be assassinated. There’s just one problem: The scene takes place in 1981, a half century after the
(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Anna Arutunyan – May 6, 2013) Anna Arutunyan is a correspondent and editor at themoscownews.com When, over the long weekend, I sat down to watch “Game of Thrones,” a fantasy series set in a mythical realm where seven houses ruthlessly vie for supreme power, I was prepared to draw parallels with Russian politics. At first, the show delivered to my inner geek as would
(Interfax – LONDON/MOSCOW, May 8, 2013) Russian business tycoon Boris Berezovsky was buried Brookwood cemetery, Surrey, in Great Britain, a source close to the businessman told Interfax on Wednesday. “The burial service was conducted in the family circle, while the burial ceremony itself was attended by 50 to 70 people – the family and friends of the late oligarch,” the source said. All the proceedings were fully closed to outsiders
(Interfax – MOSCOW, May 8, 2013) Russian human rights activists did not discuss the work of NGOs in their meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Moscow Helsinki Group Chairman Lyudmila Alekseyeva told reporters on Wednesday. “We discussed the persecution of NGOs. Kerry was impressed by our story. We did not discuss financing,” Alekseyeva said. “We did not discuss the Bolotnaya case or the Magnitsky bill,” Alekseyeva said. Lev
(Interfax – MOSCOW, May 8, 2013) Lev Ponomaryov, executive director of the movement For Human Rights, said human rights activists who have recently met with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry proposed the creation of a Russian-U.S. fund to help the human rights movement. “I made a proposal to create a Russian-U.S. fund to support the human rights movement on a parity basis,’ Ponomaryov told a press conference in the
(Interfax – May 8, 2013) Russian rights veteran and head of the Moscow Helsinki Group Lyudmila Alekseyeva has said that the fate of certain NGOs is sealed as regards being required to register as a “foreign agent”. She also criticized the incumbent authorities for their crackdown on dissenters but said she did not expect the return of an Iron Curtain. Interfax news agency carried Alekseyeva’s remarks at an 8 May
(Interfax – MOSCOW, May 8, 2013) Lev Ponomaryov, leader of the movement For Human Rights, believes most of the NGOs operating in Russia are financed from abroad because the “Khodorkovsky case” has deterred Russian businesses from supporting human rights activists. “Businesses tried to begin financing our NGOs. The first person to do that was Khodorkovsky. Everything began very well, but we know how it ended, and Russian businesses were afraid
(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Alexandra Ilina, Moskovskiye Novosti – May 8, 2013) GALKINSKOYE, Sverdlovsk region – The village of Galkinskoye is no different from any of the other towns and villages around the Urals city of Yekaterinburg, with its old wooden houses, rickety fences and decaying former farm buildings. However, in 2008, Vasily Melnichenko came up with the idea to transform it into an exemplary state farm. “Melnichenko? Vasily
(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Stanislav Kuvaldin, special to RBTH – May 8, 2013) While the government has succeeded in isolating its most vocal opponents, the opposition itself is driving other activists away due to its lack of organization. The Russian opposition held a rally on May 6 to mark the anniversary of last year’s mass protests at Bolotnaya Square. The protests in 2012 involved violent clashes with
(Eurasia Daily Monitor – Volume 10, Issue 88 – Mairbek Vatchagaev – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – May 9, 2013) The role of the brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the Boston bombings is assessed differently on either side of the Atlantic. In the United States, few doubt they are terrorists and that the youngest son, Dzhokhar, who remains alive, deserves the severest form of punishment. However, in Russia and
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova – May 8, 2013) An investigation into the embezzlement of budget funds from state-owned innovation hub Skolkovo has led to a public spat between the agency conducting the investigation and the Cabinet of Ministers, whose head, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, created the institution in 2010. On Tuesday, pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia published a damning article written by Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin in which
(Interfax – May 8, 2013) The duties of Vladislav Surkov, who on 8 May was reported to have resigned as deputy prime minister and chief of staff of the government, will be carried out by another deputy prime minister and two first deputy heads of the government staff, Interfax news agency reported on 8 May. “Until the appointment of a new vice-premier – head of the government staff,” deputy premier
(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 10, Issue 88 – Pavel Felgenhauer – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – Eurasia Daily Monitor – May 9, 2013) Moscow is in the midst of the traditional long May holiday season: The city streets are largely deserted and traffic is light. Still those of the political class who stayed in town were shocked and agitated by the sudden downfall of Vladislav Surkovdeputy prime minister and former
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Bratersky – May 10, 2013) Vladislav Surkov, the one-time gray cardinal of the Kremlin, played a leading role in shaping the current Russian political landscape during President Vladimir Putin’s first two terms in office. While Surkov has taken some credit for his behind-the-scenes wizardry, he remains very much a man in the shadows and he may remain that way after his ouster from
(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Tom Balmforth – May 9, 2013) MOSCOW — Vladislav Surkov was known as the Kremlin’s gray cardinal — feared in the corridors of power and despised by the opposition. But the Russian deputy prime minister’s surprise resignation on May 8 has them worried. Surkov’s departure, observers say, signals the rising power of hard-line factions, the “siloviki,” who have zealously prosecuted the crackdown on the opposition since
(Interfax – MOSCOW, May 8, 2014) Vladislav Surkov says he plans to write a political comedy based on real events. “I have some plans. I have a plot for a political comedy based on real events,” Surkov said in an interview with the magazine Russky Pioner, for which he writes columns, responding to a question as to whether he will be able to focus on his literary activities, inducing writing
(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Alena Tveritina, RBTH – May 10, 2013) Many Soviet writers experienced the brutal front as Red Army soldiers and as war correspondents; others collected the accounts of everyday citizens. World War II is among the most tragic chapters in the hard book of the 20th century. Many Soviet writers fought with the Red Army or followed the troops as war correspondents. The stories
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – May 10, 2013) President Vladimir Putin has praised Russian soldiers as “the liberators of Europe” at a Victory Day parade with more than 11,000 soldiers and 100 military vehicles on Red Square. “We will always remember that it was the Red Army that didn’t allow the fascists to occupy the world,” Putin said a speech at the parade Thursday. He ended the speech by saying,
Johnson’s Russia List :: 2013-#85 :: 8 May 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: www.russialist.org JRL on Facebook: www.facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: http://russialist.org/funding.php POLITICS 1. ITAR-TASS: Most Russians positive about first year of Putin’s third presidency. 2. RIA Novosti: Review: 12 Months of Putin’s Presidency.
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – May 8, 2013) An initiative by business ombudsman Boris Titov to free more than 100,000 entrepreneurs serving prison sentences for white-collar crimes will be submitted to the State Duma next week, Kommersant reported Wednesday. Titov warned that many people were likely to oppose the idea, but he acknowledged that without such a measure it would be difficult to overcome the remnants of the “turbulent 1990s.”
(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, May 7, 2013) Only seven percent of Russian citizens currently engage in entrepreneurial activity and few of the remainder even consider that a possibility, according to the Global Entrepreneurial Survey, which ranks Russia 67th out of 69 countries in terms of the number of people who form and operate new companies. Olga Verkhovskaya, the head of the Russian office of the survey,
(Interfax – MOSCOW, May 7, 2013) Most Russians claim they are accustomed to contemporary living conditions yet 54% admit “life is hard but tolerable,” sociologists said. “The number of such citizens has declined over past months (from 85% in December),” the Russian Public Opinion Study Center (VTsIOM) told Interfax on Tuesday presenting a recent poll. Meanwhile, the number of respondents who described their life as favorable has grown from 31%
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – May 8, 2013) A growing number of Russian businessmen expect the country’s economy to grow in the next 12 months, according to a quarterly survey by Grant Thornton International released Wednesday The latest survey data, when compared to last year’s results, shows an increase in the number of Russian business leaders who are annoyed with bureaucracy (69 percent compared to 55 percent), expect difficulties with
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – May 8, 2013) The leaders of some of Russia’s largest nongovernmental organizations raised their concerns about a Kremlin crackdown during a meeting Wednesday with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Kerry, who was wrapping up a two-day visit, met with the NGO representatives at Spaso House, the Moscow residence of U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul, before flying to Rome later in the day, the State Department
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – May 8, 2013) President Barack Obama’s administration has come under fire for its desire to speak off the record in some meetings with journalists. But what if the administration inadvertently breaks its own rules? That’s what appeared to happen this week when the U.S. State Department arranged a teleconference with journalists to discuss Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Moscow. The teleconference was designated
(US Department of State – May 6, 2013) Special Briefing Office of the Spokesperson Senior State Department Officials Via Teleconference Washington, DC MODERATOR: Good morning, everyone. This is [Moderator]. Thank you all for hopping on this morning. We wanted the purpose of this call is to preview the Secretary’s trip to Russia. We’ll be leaving later this afternoon, as all of you know. On the phone with us here,
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – May 8, 2013) When the parents of “Misha,” the enigmatic Ukrainian-Armenian convert to Islam who allegedly helped radicalize Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, moved to the United States in the 1990s, they likely could not have imagined that their son would eventually be accused of coaching a Muslim terrorist. Yury Allakhverdov, a Christian Armenian, and his Ukrainian wife Lidia moved with their
(RIA Novosti – Alexey Eremenko – MOSCOW, May 8, 2013) The Kremlin is trying to force the majority of independent nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Russia to shut down their operations, the leaders of two prominent Russian human rights groups said on Wednesday. “Independent [nongovernmental] organizations will simply cease to exist,” Lev Ponomaryov, the head of the For Human Rights group, said at a news conference in Moscow. “There was
(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, May 8, 2013) The Prosecutor General’s Office has branded three more Russian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as “foreign agents” saying they were financed from abroad, Izvestia daily reported on Wednesday. The latest in a series of NGOs to be listed as foreign agents are the Moscow School of Political Studies, the Urals human rights group and the Public Verdict human rights foundation. “We have discovered three organizations,
(Interfax – MOSCOW, May 7, 2013) Victory Day is one of the most significant holidays in Russia that enjoys mass support, Levada Center sociologists told Interfax quoting surveys of many years. The overwhelming majority of Russians, 70-75%, celebrated the Victory Day one way or another in the past three years, which was more than the number of Russians celebrating the May 1 holiday (52-59%). Russians aged 40-55 (73%) and older
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anatoly Medetsky – May 8, 2013) President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday berated the Cabinet for poor execution of his landmark decrees where he sought to make good on his campaign promises. He started out a Kremlin meeting by acknowledging several achievements, but then poured cold water on the ministers for most of his speech. The meeting was to review how Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s Cabinet
(Interfax – MOSCOW, May 7, 2013) – Almost half of Russian citizens trust Russian President Vladimir Putin more than any other politician and are ready to vote for him again, polls showed. If Russia had presidential elections next Sunday, 48% of Russians would vote for Putin, while other possible candidates currently get less that 10%, the poll, held by the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) in 204 settlements in 64 Russian
(Bloomberg editorial – bloomberg.com – May 7, 2013) President Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on corruption is vital to Russia’s future. It’s also certain to fail unless he recognizes the shortcomings of his methods. In 2008, under then-President Dmitry Medvedev, Russia began a genuine and somewhat successful effort to bring its corruption laws into the first world. At the same time, the state restricted investigative news media, stepped up its intimidation of
(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, MAY 6, 2013) The first year of Vladimir Putin’s third presidential term was full of events: unexpected resignations, a flood in Krymsk with an unprecedented number of victims, the first Russian APEC summit and the outstanding achievements of the Russian Olympic team. The head of state also continued a number of traditions, having resumed the practice of high-profile news conferences and question and answer sessions. RIA
(opendemocracy.net – Marc Bennetts – May 2, 2013) Marc Bennetts is a British writer and journalist. He lives in Moscow and is author of “Football Dynamo”, a book on modern Russia and football published in 2008. The fertile territories around Voronezh have long been referred to as Russia’s ‘breadbasket’. They also hold the last major nickel reserves in Europe, and the mining companies are about to move in… Konstantin Rubakhin,
(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Henry Meyer & Stepan Kravchenko – May 3, 2013) President Vladimir Putin and performers led by Placido Domingo starred at the opening of a $700 million stage for the Mariinsky Theatre that aims to cement its status as one of the world’s top cultural institutions. Last night’s black-tie gala starts three days of celebrations in St. Petersburg, Russia’s former imperial capital. The 230-year-old company’s state-funded expansion
(Institute of Modern Russia – imrussia.org – Donald N. Jensen – May 2, 2013) It is often argued that Russia’s democratic future is assured by the progressive and pro-Western attitudes of its youth. Donald N. Jensen, Resident Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, contends that the reality is more complex. The current – usually pessimistic – discussions in the West
(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 10, Issue 83 – Mairbek Vatchagaev – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – May 2, 2013) Why did Tamerlan Tsarnaev – one of the alleged April 15 Boston Marathon bombers who died in a shoot-out with police on April 18 – not demand an end to the bloodshed in Dagestan, but was instead interested in what happened in Afghanistan and Iraq? The casualties in Dagestan are quite
(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, May 3, 2013) Russia performed miserably in three major ratings by prominent Western media watchdogs released this week to mark World Press Freedom Day on Friday. Russian President Vladimir Putin retained a place on the Predators of Freedom of Information index by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, published on Friday. The report called Putin a “control freak” and accused him of oppressing Russia’s burgeoning grassroots
(Interfax – May 3, 2013) The opposition forces who are organizing a rally in Bolotnaya Square in central Moscow on May 6 have accused the organizing committee of a protest, which is expected to take place in the same venue on May 5, of planning a provocation. “Our organizing committee has a strongly negative attitude to the May 5 protest action. As far as we are concerned, it does not exist,”
(opendemocracy.net – Anna Sevortian – May 1, 2013) Anna Sevortian is an independent expert who was formerly the Director of Human Rights Watch Russia. Gogol’s government inspector was a figure of fun. Russia’s new government inspectors are anything but funny. At a meeting with FSB leaders on 14 February, Vladimir Putin put an end to any doubts about his intention to implement his controversial ‘foreign agents’ bill. ‘We have a
(Moscow Times – moscowtimes.com – May 3, 2013) An international media watchdog has called President Vladimir Putin a “predator” of free press and lumped him together with the likes of new Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Italian Mafia. The France-based Reporters Without Borders released an updated list of 39 “Predators of Freedom of Information” for World Press Freedom Day on Friday, but it reserved some of its most scorching
(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Jake Rudnitsky – May 2, 2013) Russia, the world’s biggest oil producer, boosted crude and condensate production 1.5 percent in April from a year earlier to 10.47 million barrels a day, close to a post-Soviet era record. Daily output grew 0.2 percent from March, according to preliminary data sent by e-mail today from the Energy Ministry’s CDU-TEK unit. The record of 10.49 million barrels was reached
(Interfax – BUDAPEST, May 2, 2013) Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has described problems between Russia and the European Union stemming from the EU’s Third Energy Package as “artificial” and expressed confidence they will be solved. “We anticipate that the problems with the Third Energy Package that some of our partners are artificially trying to create will be resolved, and the Russian Federation in December last year put our concrete
(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 10, Issue 83 – Pavel Felgenhauer – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – May 2, 2013) Speaking to reporters after last week’s (April 25) lengthy, televised, national question-and-answer (Q & A) session, President Vladimir Putin declared he “was optimistic this tragedy [the April 15 Boston Marathon bombing] will facilitate greater security cooperation, benefiting both America and Russia” (Interfax, April 25). This week the Kremlin announced that President
Subject: Jackson Diehl on Extremists From: John Evans <evansinusa@aol.com> Date: Thu, 2 May 2013 Jackson Diehl’s attempt to conflate the Chechen rebels with the Syrian rebels (“Extremists of Putin’s Own Making,” Washington Post op-ed, April 29, JRL #80) and then blame it all on the Russian President risks misleading readers into imagining that Russia, not Islamist extremism, is our current problem. Have we Americans not learned the lessons of the
(Kremlin.ru – April 25, 2013) (transcript conclusion) Moscow MARIA SITTEL: Friends, I want to draw your attention to the fact that we have been on the air for over four hours. Shall we take it into the home stretch? VLADIMIR PUTIN: Let’s. MARIA SITTEL: Mr President, we would like to propose a quick question and answer session, which has become a tradition on this programme. We have specially selected some
[check back for updates, including links; links also posted to twitter and facebook] Johnson’s Russia List :: 2013-#84 :: 3 May 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: www.russialist.org JRL on Facebook: www.facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: http://russialist.org/funding.php POLITICS 1. AFP: UN Sounds Alarm Over Record Arctic
(Cato Institute – cato.org – Andrei Illarionov – May 1, 2013) It is challenging to calculate the industrial output for post-socialist transition economies. However, through meticulous work based on internationally recognized statistical standards over two decades, two Russian economists currently associated with the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, Eduard Baranov and Vladimir Bessonov, were able to produce a statistical time-series for the main branches of Russian industry and for
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