(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, September 27, 2013) Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has said that investors have an “irrational fear” of Russia, a country he described as “incomprehensible” and “sometimes unpredictable,” in a long opinion piece published Friday in a Russian newspaper. The article of over 3,000 words was titled “The Time of Simple Solutions Has Passed” and focused […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, September 26, 2013) The findings of the latest Levada Center survey show, Moscow commentator Sergey Chernyakhovsky says, that most Russians support the values of the left even as Moscow is pursuing policies of the right, a divergence that raises questions about the nature of the country’s political system and its future stability. […]
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From: “Michael Herzen” <mikeh@4herzen.net> Subject: Navalny Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 Re: JRL #145 of August 9, items 24 and 25: “ALEKSEI NAVALNY AN EXAMINATION OF HIS TRIAL AND CONVICTION”, By Alexander Mercouris Surprised and dismayed that no one has commented on this “examination”, I will have to do so myself, though I am no legal scholar. Why this […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Allison Quinn – September 26, 2013) The Federation Council on Wednesday approved a controversial bill to reform the Russian Academy of Sciences, paving the way for it to be signed into law by President Vladimir Putin, as opponents of the bill protested against it outside the upper house of parliament. The bill has prompted numerous […]
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(Kremlin.ru – Novgorod Region, September 19, 2013) TELEVISION PRESENTER KSENIYA SOBCHAK: Mr President, the first post-Soviet generation grew up during your time in power. This generation has shown that it is prepared to invest time in politics. We see that these people largely urban university graduates, middle or high income are willing to work as volunteers and election […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, September 25, 2013) Russia cannot be understood as a single whole, according to Natalya Zubarevich, but only as four different Russias whose increasingly different situations are pushing them in four different directions, a pattern that is often obscured by the use of data sets for the country as a whole. In yesterday’s […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Oleg Sukhov – September 25, 2013) A key United Russia lawmaker said Tuesday that he supported granting amnesty to suspects in the high-profile Bolotnoye case, echoing recent comments by President Vladimir Putin. Speculation about a possible amnesty for suspects in the case has grown since Putin said at the Valdai Club meeting last week that […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Andrew McChesney – September 25, 2013) People should focus on Vladimir Putin’s work as president and avoid prying into his personal life not that he has one because he is so busy with his Kremlin duties, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Peskov, who made the appeal in a far-ranging interview published Wednesday in Izvestia, […]
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Subject: No. 136: Navalny and the Moscow Mayoral Election Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2013 From: “Russian Analytical Digest (RAD)” <newslist@isn.ch> RUSSIAN ANALYTICAL DIGEST Newsletter 16 September 2013/No. 136 NAVALNY AND THE MOSCOW MAYORAL ELECTION To download this issue please click here: http://www.css.ethz.ch/policy_consultancy/products_INT/DetailansichtPubDB_EN?rec_id=2712 Analyses Navalny’s Campaign to be Moscow Mayor, by Robert W. Orttung, Washington Re-Setting the Game: The Logic and […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, September 25, 2013) Nearly half of Russians believe that the recent regional elections were fair and are pleased with the results, the state-run Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) said. About 7,000 elections of various types, in which over 40 million of Russians were entitled to vote, were held across 80 Russian regions on September […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, September 23, 2013) Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev criticized the pace at which the road maps to increase business and investment activity in Russia are being implemented, as nearly half of their measures have not been carried out on time. “We can’t in any case be happy with the pace of implementation of these road maps. Of the […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, September 24, 2013) If the Federation Council approves the government-backed and Duma-approved plan to restructure the Russian Academy of Sciences, a group of Russian scientists say, this will lead to a weakening or even breakdown of horizontal ties across the country and to “the growth of separatist tendencies.” In an open letter […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – September 24, 2013) Yevgeny Roizman was inaugurated as mayor of Yekaterinburg, just as the contest for city manager, which could well determine the influence Roizman will ultimately wield, began Tuesday. Six candidates have entered the contest, with the winner to be selected by the Yekaterinburg City Duma, RIA Novosti reported. Among them is current city […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Oleg Sukhov – September 24, 2013) The appointment of former “gray cardinal” Vladislav Surkov to a post in President Vladimir Putin’s administration has prompted a flurry of speculation among Kremlin watchers with some saying it signals a return to a more flexible policy in political affairs and others insisting it is just a sinecure for […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, September 23, 2013) The 2014 budget that is being drafted by Russia’s government is the most austere in years, according to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. “It will be a difficult budget, the most difficult in recent years. It aims to ensure the stable development of Russia in a deteriorating global economic environment,” Medvedev said at a meeting […]
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(Interfax – September 23, 2013) Russian Prime Minister Dmitriy Medvedev has acknowledged that security and the armed forces are a priority for state spending and social needs will have to take their place in the queue, Interfax news agency reported on 23 September. “I hope that after we complete the reorganization and restructuring of the armed forces, on which we’re […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ezekiel Pfeifer – September 23, 2013) A Moscow court on Friday rejected a lawsuit brought by opposition politician Alexei Navalny seeking to cancel the results of the city’s Sept. 8 mayoral election, in which Navalny placed second behind Kremlin-backed winner Sergei Sobyanin. Navalny’s team argued that the results were illegitimate because of violations including unequal […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Natalya Krainova – September 23, 2013) An alliance of Russia’s nonparliamentary opposition that was formed at the peak of large-scale street protests in Moscow last year has seen an exodus of its leaders, prompting predictions of its impending political death. Former mayoral candidate Alexei Navalny, Solidarity co-leaders Boris Nemtsov and Ilya Yashin, former State Duma […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, September 21, 2013) Russian liberals who back candidates that make nationalist appeals either out of calculation or conviction in the hopes that this will boost their poll numbers are sacrificing their own values and helping the authoritarian regime in the Kremlin, according to a St. Petersburg University student. In a letter to […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, September 22, 2013) Vladimir Putin’s spokesman has categorically dismissed online rumors that the Russian president has remarried in a church ceremony at a secluded monastery in central Russia. A Twitter message that swept through social networks on Saturday claimed that Putin, who divorced in June, tied the knot again earlier in the day at the […]
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(Interfax – September 20, 2013) Russian pundits seem not to be surprised with President Vladimir Putin’s statement that he does not rule out standing in the next presidential election in 2018. Putin said this during a question-and-answer session at the Valday discussion club in Novgorod Region on 19 September. They believe Putin considers this scenario as basic and that this […]
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(Kremlin.ru – Novgorod Region, September 19, 2013) MODERATOR SVETLANA MIRONYUK: They say that Senator McCain followed your example and published an article of his own in Pravda newspaper. He probably remembers from the Soviet years that Pravda was a well-known publication and the most popular newspaper in the country. True, a lot of time has passed and things have changed […]
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(Kremlin.ru – Novgorod Region, September 19, 2013) Vladimir Putin took part in the final plenary meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club. The theme of the club’s anniversary session is Russia’s Diversity for the Modern World. PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN: Good afternoon, friends, ladies and gentlemen, I hope that the place for your discussions, for our meetings is well […]
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(RIA Novosti – September 19, 2013) The Russian president’s press secretary, Dmitriy Peskov, has said that the question put to Vladimir Putin during the meeting of the Valday (also spelt Valdai) discussion club on 19 September about the possibility of him standing in the 2018 presidential election was “rhetorical” and received an appropriate answer, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Vasily Shumov, special to RBTH – September 20, 2013) In modern Russia, we can see that almost every public rally features a music performance that can be identified as a protest song. Russian protest songs have come a long way in the past 60 years following World War IIstarting with songs created by […]
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(Interfax – VALDAI, September 19, 2013) Former Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin has said that should another economic crisis break out in Russia, it might bring with it political consequences. “If a crisis occurs, it will trigger political repercussions,” Kudrin told reporters on the sidelines of the Valdai discussion club. The ex-minister, however, declined to forecast when a new crisis […]
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(Pravda.ru – September 19, 2013) When Pravda.ru editor, Dmitry Sudakov, offered to publish my commentary, he referred to me as “an active anti-Russian politician for many years.” I’m sure that isn’t the first time Russians have heard me characterized as their antagonist. Since my purpose here is to dispel falsehoods used by Russia’s rulers to perpetuate their power and excuse […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, September 18, 2013) The apparent fact that Aleksey Navalnyy is popular in Moscow does not make him the sole leader of the opposition in the country, believes Boris Nemtsov, co-chairman of RPR-Parnas. “It is an apparent fact that Aleksey Navalnyy is the leader of the opposition in Moscow. However, it is too early to say whether or […]
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(RIA Novosti – VALDAI, Novgorod Region, September 18, 2013) An outspoken Russian opposition lawmaker said Wednesday that political protest in the country was too fragmented to generate the kind of large-scale public discontent that erupted after parliamentary elections in 2011. “I’m convinced there will be no new wave of protests,” Ilya Ponomaryov of A Just Russia party said at […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, September 18, 2013) A bill to hand over control of research institutions in Russia from the country’s Academy of Sciences to the federal government was approved on Wednesday in the federal parliament despite vehement objections from the scientific community. The landmark bill, which has yet to be approved by the upper house of parliament and […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Anna Arutunyan – September 18, 2013) As the Russian government continues to search for a national identity unifying Russians, a recent study shows a society atomized along ethnic and economic lines. With so little holding a people together, the findings, sociologists say, challenge a long-held assumption that Russia is an inherently collectivist society. “We are […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, September 18, 2013) Russia should be preserved within its current borders at any cost, said 93% of citizens polled by the Public Opinion Foundation in September. Some 57% of 1,000 respondents polled over the phone said there was a threat to Russian territorial integrity. Such answers were mostly given by citizens older than 60 (69%), vocational school […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Grigorii Golosov – September 17, 2013) Grigorii Golosov is Professor of Political Science, Project Director, Center for Democracy and Human Rights Helix, St. Petersburg Recent regional elections in Russia provoked more interest than usual, mainly because charismatic and controversial opposition leader Alexei Navalny was standing in the Moscow mayoral election. Some results were dramatic, but Grigorii Golosov wonders […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Natalya Krainova – September 18, 2013) The State Duma on Wednesday is set to review a controversial reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences in a key second reading amid a flurry of scandalous accusations against both the academy’s leadership and federal lawmakers who’ve sponsored the reform. The proposed reform has been met with major […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, September 17, 2013) Academician Yury Osipov, who was the Russian Academy of Sciences’ president for 12 years, said an unseemly and insulting campaign has been launched in the media against the Academy. “A well-orchestrated and large-scale information campaign against the Academy of Sciences, which is apparently linked to the Academy reform, aims to convince the public, whose […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, September 18, 2013) Ever fewer Russians are taking part in elections, a trend that one Moscow analyst has suggested is a greater threat to the Kremlin than any increase in support for opposition figures because it sets the stage of “either a ‘cold’ civil war” with real elections “or an ordinary civil […]
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(opendemocracy.net – By Tatyana Kargina – September 18, 2013) ‘Delai Sam’ is Russian for ‘Do it yourself,’ a concept supposedly alien to the average Russian, who is used to having other people take decisions for him or her. But, as Tatyana Kargina reports, herself a ‘Delia Sam’ believer, more and more people are becoming civic grassroots activists. ‘Do it yourself,’ […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Leonid Bershidsky, an Editor and Novelist, is a Bloomberg View contributor – September 17, 2013) If you’ve ever wondered about the size of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s private fortune, allow me to offer a clue: He doesn’t need one. From time to time, Western journalists and bloggers speculate about whether Putin is one of the world’s […]
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(RIA Novosti – YAROSLAVL, September 17, 2013) Russian opposition leader and former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov is under investigation for publicly inciting “extremist activity,” local prosecutors told RIA Novosti Tuesday. Prosecutors in Yaroslavl did not indicate which statements concerned them, but Boris Nemtsov, who is co-leader of the Parnas opposition party and a local lawmaker, links this to […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, September 16, 2013) Moscow’s pro-Kremlin mayor, who recaptured his post after a closely watched election last weekend, said Monday he would not run for Russia’s presidency in 2018, but suggested that his victory against opposition leader Alexei Navalny has bolstered his legitimacy. Asked about plans to run in the next presidential race, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, […]
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(Howard Amos, RIA Novosti – VALDAI, September 16, 2013) Russian officials, opposition leaders and pundits wrestled on Monday with the disjuncture between the country’s capital and its far-flung provinces at an international conference, where two erstwhile political rivals from the mineral-rich Urals region surprised observers by publicly settling their differences. The newly elected mayor of Yekaterinburg and outspoken Kremlin […]
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(Interfax – September 16, 2013) Opposition activist Alexei Navalny will most likely continue his political career not in the 2014 Moscow City Duma elections but by opening of party offices in regions where problems are likely to occur, General Director of the International Institute for Political Expertise (IIPE) Yevgeny Minchenko said. “A lot depends on whether or not the People’s […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Artem Zagorodnov, RBTH – September 16, 2013) The fight against graft has emerged as a rallying cry for Russia’s nascent opposition, yielding victories in local elections. The Kremlin agrees with its critics about the problem. Analysts hope the business climate stands to benefit. Dmitry Bykov, the charismatic Russian TV host-turned-opposition leader, stepped to […]
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(Interfax – September 16, 2013) Parliamentary parties are losing the support of regional and local elites some of whom are shifting towards new political forces, the Civil Initiatives Committee think tank suggested. “There is an outflow of regional and local elites and voters from practically every “systemic” party [which has seats at the State Duma]. Candidates are moving from one […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, September 16, 2013) Almost half of all Russians, 44 percent, agree with opposition leader Alexei Navalny that the ruling United Russia party is made up of “crooks and thieves,” a recent opinion poll showed Monday, a significant increase from two years ago. Navalny, an anti-corruption activist who finished second in Moscow’s recent mayoral election, coined […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – September 13, 2013) President Vladimir Putin will meet prominent opposition politicians at the 10th annual Valdai International Discussion Club, where Russian and foreign experts will discuss diversity, political and otherwise, in modern Russia, a news report said Friday. The forum is being held in the Novgorod region from Sept. 16-19 and will conclude with a […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Allison Quinn – September 13, 2013) President Vladimir Putin hailed Moscow’s mayoral elections as fair and transparent at Sergei Sobyanin’s inauguration ceremony Thursday evening, attributing any “opposition votes” to frustration with bureaucrats abusing power. “I’m sure that nobody would’ve voted against Sobyanin. Why would they vote against him? He’s done nothing but good, especially over […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – September 13, 2013) Russians have no respect for Pussy Riot, a poll from Levada Center indicates. Out of a sample of 1,601 people surveyed in 130 urban centers, not a single respondent said that they respected the band. In August 2012, band members Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Yekaterina Samutsevich and Maria Alyokhina were sentenced to two years […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Yaroslava Kiryukhina, RBTH – September 11, 2013) Women are poorly represented in politics in Russia, although a handful of women politicans have reached key positions. Russia is known for being a patriarchal country, but despite considerable barriers, some women leaders have managed to reach high levels in the political hierarchy. Women make up […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Brian Whitmore – September 11, 2013) When Aleksei Navalny addressed thousands of supporters on Moscow’s Bolotnaya Square, he surprised many when he urged the crowd to go home peacefully after the rally ended. Earlier on September 9, the anticorruption blogger-turned-opposition leader appeared to implicitly be threatening mass unrest when he said he would call his supporters […]
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