Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
(Interfax – January 1, 2014) Russian President Vladimir Putin has been named the person of the year again, Putin is first in popularity ratings since 1999, sociologists of the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) told Interfax citing a poll held. The survey was held on December 7-8 in 43 Russian regions in 100 cities, towns and villages and involved 1,500 respondents. […]
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MOSCOW, December 31 (RIA Novosti) A former painter from Moscow, whose quest to bring culture to provincial villagers resulted in a jail term for bribery, was granted parole on Tuesday. The Tver Region Court upheld a parole request filed by 36-year-old Ilya Farber, who had already spent two years and nine months behind bars. Farber left Moscow for the […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 30 (Interfax) – The Republican Party of Russia-PARNAS (RPR-PARNAS) may split up in the near future, says a statement made by some members of the RPR political board on Monday. “If we cannot consolidate the three components of the party, the issue of RPR’s restoration in its classical shape as a liberal, democratic, opposition, responsible and professional party […]
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(Kremlin.ru – December 31, 2013) Vladimir Putin welcomed in the New Year in Khabarovsk together with residents of the Far East who have suffered from devastating flooding. In Khabarovsk, the President delivered his New Year’s Address to the Nation. PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN: Friends, The New Year of 2014 is almost here: in a few moments, we will take […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 30 (Interfax) – The attempts to hold any nationalist rallies due to terrorist attacks in Volgograd are unacceptable, the Russian Federation Council said. “Amid the current situation various nationalist movements should not be allowed to earn points with this tragedy, terrorist attacks and people’s grief. Appeals for nationalist gatherings are voiced in Volgograd. Such rallies will play into […]
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MAGADAN/KHABAROVSK, December 31 (RIA Novosti) Russian President Vladimir Putin broke with tradition this December 31 and delivered two New Year’s speeches instead of one. In a pre-recorded New Year’s address to Russians shown on television minutes before midnight in Russia’s easternmost Kamchatka region, Putin outlined the priorities for the coming year. “Next year, a lot needs to be done […]
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(opendemocracy.net/Chatham House – Roderic Lyne – December 25, 2013) Sir Roderic Lyne served as British Ambassador to Russia from January 2000 until August 2004, when he retired from the Diplomatic Service after 34 years. He now works as a consultant, principally advising businesses on Russia and the CIS. He was a member of the Chilcot Enquiry. Experts agree modernisation and […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – December 30, 2013) From the sudden release of Mikhail Khodorkovsky to the tragic events in Volgograd, here are 10 top headline grabbers for 2013 according to The Moscow News staff. 1. Khodorkovsky bombshell President Vladimir Putin’s decision to suddenly pardon oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky was possibly the most unexpected news of the year. After two […]
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MOSCOW, December 28 (RIA Novosti) More than a half of Russians said they will remember 2013 as a successful year for them, an independent pollster said on Saturday. A total of 51 percent said the year was successful for them, 24 said it was unsuccessful and 25 percent had no answer. However, 30 percent said that this year was […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Alexandra Guzeva, RBTH – December 30, 2013) As the year draws to a close, check out these 13 stories that RBTH readers found most interesting, engaging or thought-provoking in 2013. Most popular stories of 2013: Russia to ban cash transactions over $10,000 Russia beckons for Tebow Putin’s medical secrets leaked to the media […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Michael Bohm – December 30, 2013) Michael Bohm is opinion page editor of The Moscow Times. Looking back at the main events that shaped Russia over the past 12 months, it is clear that 2013 will go down in history as President Vladimir Putin’s “anti-year.” It was in 2013 that the powers that be not […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Tanya Lokshina – December 24, 2013) Tanya Lokshina is Russia Program Director at Human Rights Watch The amnesty, presidential pardon and resulting ‘celebrity releases’ might understandably overshadow the rest of 2013, says Tanya Lokshina. But it’s far too early to suggest they underpin a significant improvement in the rights situation in Russia. What will we remember about 2013? […]
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(Kremlin.ru – December 27, 2013) An official New Year reception was held in the Kremlin Palace on behalf of the President of Russia. PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN: Good evening, friends, We have an excellent tradition of meeting in the Kremlin on the eve of the New Year. Such receptions are considered official events; however, I hope you are in […]
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MOSCOW, December 30 (RIA Novosti) Russian leader Vladimir Putin has been named International Person of the Year by Britain’s The Times newspaper for succeeding in his ambition of bringing Moscow back to the international top table. The paper said Putin, 61, a judo black belt, has hip-flipped US President Barack Obama on the Syrian crisis, wrestled the EU to […]
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(Interfax – December 28, 2013) As many as 26 percent of Russians interviewed by the Levada Center sociological service have once again described Russian President Vladimir Putin as the person of the year in a December 2013 poll. Putin has been found the person of the year in all polls conducted by the Levada Center since 1999. Defense Minister Sergei […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Richard Sakwa – December 27, 2013) Richard Sakwa is professor of Russian and European politics at the University of Kent, England. Among his books are Putin: Russia’s Choice (Routledge, 2nd edition, 2007) and Russian Politics and Society (Routledge, 4th edition, 2008) Russia today is a hybrid state, combining democratic institutions with authoritarian practices, which coexist in a continual […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Delphine d’Amora – December 30, 2013) Former oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky has a tough-love prescription for Russian officialdom decimation, in the classical sense of the word. “We need a decimation. Firing a tenth of them. If it doesn’t help do it again,” Khodorkovsky told Novaya Gazeta in an interview published Friday. In Roman […]
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MOSCOW, December 29 (RIA Novosti) Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law would make spreading separatist views a criminal offence punishable by up to five years in jail. Under the law submitted to the Russian State Duma by the Communist Party, people will face a fine of up to 300,000 rubles ($9,200) for calling for action aimed against Russia’s […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 26 (Interfax) – The number of Russians convinced that the State Duma should make decisions independently of the president’s opinion has exceeded the number of those believing that the Duma should support the president in all of his undertakings for the first time since 2000, the Public Opinion Foundation found based on a poll of 1,500 respondents it […]
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(Kremlin.ru – December 26, 2013) Ahead of the New Year, Vladimir Putin met with Government Cabinet members. The President gave an assessment of the work performed by the Cabinet and set the priorities for 2014. PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN: Mr Medvedev, colleagues, We are meeting ahead of the New Year, which is a time to recap. But we will […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 26 (Interfax) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said the government is not using its full potential. “I find the results [of the government’s work] to be satisfactory. However, no doubt they can be even better. I believe the government, no doubt, has reserves and the potential of the government has not been fully realized yet,” Putin, who met […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Panin – December 27, 2013) Floods, armies, space travel, dreams of Eurasian integration and the prosperity of the Far East all dragged President Vladimir Putin from the comfort of Moscow in 2013. But a review of the catalog of Putin’s travels around Russia this year, indicates that international sporting events caused him by far […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber – December 27, 2013) President Vladimir Putin took a novel approach to 2013. His novel of choice this year was Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina.” Tolstoy’s tale of moral dilemmas and human transgressions begins with the famous line, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” an […]
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(RIA Novosti – December 26, 2013) Russian President Vladimir Putin’s popularity has fallen in 2013 but he is still the most popular politician in Russia, Russian RIA Novosti reported, quoting the results of a public opinion poll.[1] According to a poll carried out by the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Centre (VTsIOM) in December, 44 per cent of the respondents named […]
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MOSCOW, December 27 (RIA Novosti) The two Pussy Riot members freed from prison this week said Friday that they were planning to distance themselves from radical political activism and focus on a new project to advocate for the rights of prisoners in Russia. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, who spent almost 22 months in prison on hooliganism charges for […]
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KYIV. Dec 25 (Interfax) – An activist of the feminist movement FEMEN has disrupted a Christmas mass in Kolner Dom, the main cathedral of Cologne, Germany. “The activist climbed the altar of the cathedral in the presence of thousands of people to protest the Vatican propaganda for the criminalization of abortion. The words ‘I AM GOD!’ were painted on the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Oleg Sukhov – December 24, 2013) Requesting money for a project that violates the laws of physics is something you would expect from an institution run by government officials, say critics of the reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center, a government-owned company, is developing a gravitsapa […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 24 (Interfax) – Valentina Matviyenko, speaker of the Federation Council, the upper chamber of Russia’s parliament, has advised against comparing former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was pardoned by the Russian president on December 20 and flew to Berlin immediately after his release from prison, with Soviet writer and dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn, whom Matviyenko described as a prominent […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 23 (Interfax) – Russian Communist Party Central Committee First Deputy Chairman, State Duma First Vice-Speaker Ivan Melnikiov has presented the results of the outgoing year the way they are seen by the communists. “The period of pretentious capitalism which is addicted to the resource model started to expire in 2013. Practically everyone said that the country had hit […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Brian Whitmore – December 19, 2013) Vladimir Putin is calling on the conservatives of the world to unite — behind him. The Kremlin leader’s full-throated defense of Russia’s “traditional values” and his derision of the West’s “genderless and infertile” liberalism in his annual state-of-the-nation address last week was just the latest example of Putin attempting to […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – December 23, 2013) Russians would like to see nongovernmental organizations provide more help for socially vulnerable groups but aren’t interested in an increase in human rights advocacy, the Public Chamber said in a report. Russia has roughly 100,000 registered “socially oriented NGOs,” but only 5 percent of them are “really active,” a draft report published […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, December 23, 2013) One can only be pleased for those who have been released from unjustified captivity in the Russian Federation such as Mikhail Khodorkovsky, but one should only be disturbed by what such periodic mass amnesties on public holidays and state anniversaries in Russia say about the nature of that country’s […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Anna Arutunyan – December 21, 2013) I don’t know quite how to say this without diminishing the importance of the incomprehensible inner trial that a Russian man undergoes in a Russian prison for amassing his own power and using it to defy the Russian state. First of all, I am sincerely happy that former oil […]
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(Interfax – December 22, 2013) Russian opposition politicians and human rights figures have expressed different views on the political future of former head of the Yukos oil company, Mikhail Khodorkovskiy, who was pardoned by President Vladimir Putin and released from prison on 20 December. Eduard Limonov, radical opposition figure and leader of the unregistered Other Russia party, thinks that Khodorkovskiy […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anatoly Medetsky – December 23, 2013) The opposition’s lackluster performance in recent regional elections has likely contributed to President Vladimir Putin’s stunning decision to pardon a former thorn in his side: Mikhail Khodorkovsky. In the most spectacular showdown, Alexei Navalny, a critic of Putin, mustered 27 percent of the vote in the race for the […]
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Moscow/Krasnoyarsk, December 23, Interfax – The Moscow Patriarchate is hoping that the members of the feminist punk group Pussy Riot who have been released from prison today after being amnestied will improve. “Every person has a right to make public statements, honest debates, and competition of ideas. However, when political manipulations and dangerous provocations happen, it’s unacceptable,” Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 20 (Interfax) – The statements of people accusing Russia of imperial ambitions or aspiration to restore the Soviet Union are groundless, Russian Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko said. “No one wants to restore anything and it is impossible already, so such statements are absolutely baseless,” Matviyenko said at an integration club meeting in the Russian Geographical Society. It […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Natalya Krainova – December 19, 2013) An international public commission declared Wednesday that there were no “riots” at the May 2012 opposition protest on Bolotnaya Ploshchad in Moscow, which was dispersed after violence broke out with police, resulting in more than 400 detentions. The commission’s findings were announced as hope lingers that at least some […]
» Read more(Kremlin.ru – December 19, 2013) [DJ: Putin video http://eng.kremlin.ru/video/1680 with English interpretation] QUESTION: Jill Dougherty, CNN. Mr Putin, I worked in Russia in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and when I came back, I noticed that a lot of attention is being given to religion and moral values. I don’t remember it being like that. I would like to […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 19 (Interfax) – Russian President Vladimir Putin is opposed to the attempts to agitate or split society over attitude to monuments to certain historical figures. “We should respect every period in our history, and it is better not to agitate or blow our minds with certain premature actions that may split our society,” Putin said. He said he […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 19 (Interfax) – Russian President Vladimir Putin has disagreed with the opinion that Russia is controlled in “manual regime” by the chief of state. “You are mistaken that the chief of state is dealing with the bulk of governance issues. Questions, which catch the public eye one way or another, come up and there is an impression that […]
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MOSCOW, December 20 (RIA Novosti) Mayors of Russian cities should be elected, President Vladimir Putin said Thursday, following recent media speculation that direct mayoral elections could be abolished. “Mayors certainly should be only elected… The municipal level is the closest level of power to people,” Putin told journalists at his annual televised press conference. “Municipal heads should be people […]
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MOSCOW, December 19 (RIA Novosti) A Moscow court said Thursday that it was halting prosecution of four protesters accused of attacking police last year at an opposition rally that deteriorated into mass riots. The Nikulinsky Court decided to halt the proceedings as part of a sweeping amnesty that is being granted to thousands of prisoners and defendants in honor […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 18 (Interfax) – The amnesty declared by the State Duma should be considered clemency and another amnesty over 100th anniversary since the World War I began should be declared in 2014, Russian human rights commissioner Vladimir Lukin said. “I treat positively any measures of the state aimed at easing the fate of people,” Lukin told Interfax regarding the […]
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(Kremlin.ru – December 19, 2013) Vladimir Putin held a news conference at the World Trade Centre on Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment. Over 1,300 Russian and foreign journalists have been accredited to cover the new conference. PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, It feels as if we never parted. We met here last year and have barely blinked […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – December 19, 2013) President Vladimir Putin conducted his ninth major news conference today at Moscow’s World Trade Center, an annual event during which he is bombarded with questions on Russia’s policies and the government’s plans for the future. Moscow Times reporter Ivan Nechepurenko attended the news conference at the World Trade Center, while news reporter […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov and Christopher Brennan – December 19, 2013) The State Duma gave preliminary approval on Wednesday to an amnesty that could set free members of the feminist punk collective Pussy Riot among other high-profile inmates, and was expected to pass the bill in its final reading later in the day. Hopes and expectations still […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 18 (Interfax) – The amnesty declared by the State Duma on Wednesday does not resolve one of the main issues in the Russian justice system, the Human Rights Watch international human rights organization said. “The amnesty will allow the release of a number of citizens and this is good. This is better than nothing but the amnesty does […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, December 18, 2013) A century ago, the Russian religious thinker Sergey Bulgakov wrote a seminal essay entitled “Karl Marx as a Religious Type” in which he outlined the ways in which that self-proclaimed atheist was in fact someone profoundly affected in his thinking by the religious tradition of which he was a […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 17 (Interfax) – The European Union is divided over the issue of signing the Association Agreement with Ukraine, but the EU is unanimous in its call for the resignation of Ukraine’s current leadership, Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee, told Interfax on Monday. “The impression is that a certain split is obvious within the […]
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