(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Nikolaus von Twickel – February 8, 2013) Eleven prominent rights groups have sent a complaint against Russia’s so-called foreign agent law, which targets NGOs engaged in political activities, to the European Court of Human Rights. The organizations argued on Thursday that the legislation violates the Constitution and fundamental human rights such as the freedoms […]
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PARIS. Feb 6 (Interfax) – Moscow continues to insist on being provided with legally-binding guarantees by NATO, and primarily the United States, that the missile defense system being deployed in Europe will not be targeted against Russia, State Duma Chairman Sergei Naryshkin said at debates with French National Assembly deputies. “We need guarantees backed by objective technical parameters that this […]
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(Interfax – January 31, 2013) The Russians like the European Union more than the USA and believe that in its foreign policy Moscow should gravitate towards Western Europe and the CIS countries, Russian Interfax news agency reported, quoting an opinion poll carried out by the Levada Centre in January. In the poll, 64 per cent of the participants said they […]
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WASHINGTON, January 30 (RIA Novosti) The United States and Europe should work to persuade Russia’s leadership to let their country become more “integrated” with the West despite challenges in relations with Moscow, outgoing US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in an interview published Tuesday. “It’s going to have to be a mutual effort, Europe and the United States both […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Anna Arutunyan – January 28, 2013) When Ali applied for asylum in Austria, he thought that any kind of life would be better than facing rampant power abuses in Russia’s restive republic of Chechnya. Instead, he found himself fending off questions about whether he was a terrorist. And the scrutiny continued after his asylum was […]
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(Government.ru – January 23, 2013) Question (as translated): Good morning! We have Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev here today. Forty-five minutes from now, he will deliver a keynote speech here in Davos, at the World Economic Forum. Mr Prime Minister, thank you for coming. By the way, you are the first leader who agreed to be interviewed without wearing a […]
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(Nikolaus von Twickel – Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – January 23, 2013) The suicide of activist Alexander Dolmatov in a Dutch extradition center has highlighted the challenges for Russian opposition members to get political asylum in Europe, but his tragic case does not mean that obtaining asylum has become impossible, experts said Tuesday. Dolmatov was found dead last Thursday in […]
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MOSCOW. Jan 18 (Interfax) – The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe must get rid of imbalances and double standards by 2015, becoming a fully-fledged international organization with its own charter, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. “Russia sees the Helsinki + 40 initiative as an important step that aims to launch the process of the OSCE’s renewal and […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Simon Kennedy & Scott Rose – January 16, 2013) The world is on the brink of a fresh “currency war,” Russia warned, as European policy makers joined Japan in bemoaning the economic cost of rising exchange rates. “Japan is weakening the yen and other countries may follow,” Alexei Ulyukayev, first deputy chairman of Russia’s central bank, […]
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[Russia’s Syria Support Said to be a Losing Proposition – Vedomosti – Vladislav Inozemtsev, doctor of economic sciences, director of the Center for Study of the Post-Industrial Society – December 24, 2012 – no accessible link] Vladislav Inozemtsev writes in Vedomosti on Russia’s Syria policy, also focusing strongly on economic factors such as oil, gas and Syrian debt. At the […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Bryan Bradley – January 4, 2013) U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s opposition to Russia’s growing economic might in Europe wasn’t practical, Vydas Gedvilas, the head of Lithuania’s new parliament, said in an interview with Russian radio. The international influence of Russian businesses is an economic reality that European countries must separate from politics and deal […]
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(Dmitri Trenin – www.opendemocracy.net – Dmitri Trenin, Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center; Counselor of the Commission on Euro-Atlantic Security – December 24, 2012) A year is a very long time in politics. Over the past year Russia’s relations with the West have deteriorated, not helped by events in Syria and the Magnitsky Act. A new beginning and a desire […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Nikolaus von Twickel – December 20, 2012) President Vladimir Putin will meet with European Union leaders in Brussels on Friday for a pre-Christmas summit, but the mood will hardly be festive. Disputes involving visas, trade and energy have cast a shadow over EU-Russia relations in recent months, giving both sides tough issues to discuss. More […]
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(Interfax – December 19, 2012) The differences between Russia and the European Union in negotiations on a new basic agreement are not insurmountable, Russian Ambassador to the EU Vladimir Chizhov told Russian reporters in Brussels. “The EU, and it is not hiding this, would like to go further in relations with Russia than the package of conditions on which Russia […]
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(Interfax – December 17, 2012) The Russian Foreign Ministry’s ombudsman for human rights, Konstantin Dolgov, has criticized the human rights situation in the European Union. Dolgov was speaking at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) conference in Turin, as reported by the Russian news agency Interfax on 17 December. Speaking about some EU countries’ involvement in the […]
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