(Interfax – January 14, 2014) Duma deputies are ready to vote for the re-introduction of daylight savings time even if the decision is not backed by the government, the Russian State Duma said. “Since the government is not in a hurry, it means there will be the law aiming to bring all constituent regions of the Federation as close as […]
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(Moscow News/RIA Novosti – Oleg Sukhov – January 13, 2014) Russian lawmakers are considering a measure to restore the “against all” option on ballots in elections. The initiative seeks to reinstate the opportunity for voters to oppose all the candidates running in municipal, regional and parliamentary elections. The measure is backed by Valentina Matviyenko, the speaker of the upper house […]
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MOSCOW. Jan 9 (Interfax) – The bill of the Russian Liberal Democratic Party faction member Roman Khudyakov to introduce criminal liability for relatives of terrorist is PR, head of the Russian State Duma legislation committee Pavel Krashennikov (the United Russia party faction) said. “To imprison for a brother, father, son – we remember when this happened and, thank God, we […]
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MOSCOW. Jan 10 (Interfax) – The Russian government’s decision to appraise gifts received by officials has certain logic but the possibility to prevent a gift business allowing officials to “launder” bribes is the question, Foundation for Effective Politics President Gleb Pavlovsky said. “What is the political meaning of this decision? It will make sense to decide whether we want officials […]
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(Interfax – January 10, 2014) Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has signed a governmental resolution ordering an appraisal of all of the gifts received by the country’s civil servants during official events. The government’s press service said, citing the document, that Russian civil servants will be required to report all of their presents within three days after they were received […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – January 10, 2014) Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has signed an order requiring state officials to hand over to the state any gifts they receive that are worth more than 3,000 rubles ($90), but gives them an option of buying the presents back. The anti-corruption measure requires government officials to report any gifts within three days […]
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MOSCOW. Jan 10 (Interfax) – Russian veteran rights defender, Moscow Helsinki Group head Lyudmila Alexeyeva has criticized the idea of actor and Euroset creative director Ivan Okhlobystin to restore the “sodomy” article in the Russian Penal Code. “That looks like obscurantism,” Alexeyeva told Interfax on Friday. “Why are they so keen on this subject? I cannot understand that; doesn’t the […]
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(Institute to Modern Russia – imrussia.org – Alexander Podrabinek – January 8, 2014) Terrorism is a global problem that affects dozens of countries in today’s world. But, as author and analyst Alexander Podrabinek notes in this commentary, terrorism in Russia has its ownoften unexplainable”national peculiarities.” Terrorism is strange in Russia. Bombs go off in cars, on planes and at train […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Marina Obrazkova, RBTH – January 9, 2014) Russia’s regional administrative division is complicated. There are regions, territories, republics, and federal districts. All these are formally equal under the constitution, but in reality there are considerable differences. Experts say this complex state administration system is a legacy of the Russian Empire and the Soviet […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, January 9, 2014) Support in the city of Moscow for Vladimir Putin’s new conservative message has always seemed “insincere,” according to a Russian commentator. But in ethnic Russian regions, that message has been warmly echoed by the actions of national conservative groups. In an essay on the Svobodnaya pressa portal yesterday, Vladislav […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, January 8, 2014) Two groups in the Russian opposition which are often lumped together the committed democrats and oligarchs who use democratic phraseology and even tactics to pursue wealth and the division of power — in fact are distinct, have very different goals, and often find themselves in conflict, according to […]
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(Russia in Global Affairs – eng.globalaffairs.ru – Valery Tishkov – December 27, 2013 Valery Tishkov is Academician-Secretary in the History and Philology Department at the Russian Academy of Sciences. He is Director of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, and a Member of the Presidential Council on Inter-Ethnic Relations. Resume: Some political scientists believe there is no common nation in […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, January 7, 2013) From the point of view of both international law and the critical needs of the peoples of the Russian Federation, Vadim Belotserkovsky argues, the new Russian law imposing criminal penalties for the “‘propaganda of separatism’” is the real crime because it undermines “the inalienable right of peoples to self-determination.” […]
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Moscow, January 7, Interfax – President Vladimir Putin has greeted Orthodox Christians, all Russian citizens celebrating Christmas, the Kremlin press service reported on Tuesday. “This lightsome holiday nourishes the kindest of feelings and intensions and serves to unite millions of people on the basis of common spiritual values and historical traditions of which mutual respect and accord, mercy and care […]
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[scroll down for video] (Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – January 7, 2014) Police detained two dozen protesters who gathered in central Moscow on Monday to demand the release of opposition activists from prison and to denounce the publicity stunts meant to boost Russia’s image ahead of the Sochi Olympic Games. The protesters gathered on Manezhnaya Square on Russian Christmas Eve, […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – January 6, 2014) Almost 95 percent of Russian television viewers saw the traditional New Year’s address by President Vladimir Putin, according to preliminary data from media research firm TNS Russia. This year’s address differed starkly from previous years in that it was delivered in two versions, the initial one recorded in the Kremlin and broadcast […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, January 1, 2013) President Vladimir Putin’s “conservatism” is a combination of the ideas of the Russian radical right of the early 20th century and Stalin’s notions of “traditional values” which the dictator used to cover repression and fool the west, according to a Moscow commentator. In short, Pavel Protsenko argues in “Yezhednevny […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Robert Coalson – January 1, 2014) At a press conference back in September, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry made a seemingly throwaway remark that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could avoid outside military intervention by giving up all his chemical weapons. The same day, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin seized the diplomatic initiative by calling on his […]
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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 News – themoscownews.com – David Burghardt – December 31, 2013) Margarita Simonyan has been named editor-in-chief of the newly founded Rossiya Segodnya, previously called RIA Novosti, the news agency’s general director, Dmitry Kiselyov, announced on Tuesday. Simonyan was appointed editor-in-chief of the Moscow-based English-language television station RT in 2005. “This key position could only be held by a person […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, December 31, 2013) Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin defined terrorism as any action which killed a large number of people, but under Vladimir Putin, Russia’s leading independent specialist on its intelligence community says, terrorism has been redefined as “‘a policy of intimidation and pressure on the organs of power.’” That change is […]
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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 – 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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(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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(Interfax – December 27, 2013) Almost half of Russians (46 per cent) welcome a recent amnesty and about a third (31 per cent) think it is unnecessary, Russian Interfax news agency reported on 27 December, quoting an opinion poll carried out in December. On 18 December the Russian State Duma announced an amnesty in connection with the 20th anniversary of […]
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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. Dec 26 (Interfax) – President Vladimir Putin is predominantly seen in Russia as the politician of the year, an opinion poll suggests. The Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) said in a report made available to Interfax on Thursday that 44% of respondents in a recent poll named Putin as the top politician of 2013. Everyone else was 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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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Panin – December 26, 2013) For some bank depositors, the second half of 2013 has been a year to increase their intimacy with the state, whether they wanted to or not. Anyone with funds in the more than 30 small and medium-sized commercial banks that lost their licenses this year would have gone to […]
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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 – 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 […]
» 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) Several top Russian companies have announced plans to reduce their use of offshore holding structures after President Vladimir Putin repeated calls for “deoffshorization” last week, according to a Russian newspaper report Thursday. Aluminum producer Rusal, telecoms giant MTS, truck maker Kamaz, state-owned hydroelectric conglomerate RusHydro and iron ore miner Metalloinvest have all made commitments […]
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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 Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Panin – December 18, 2013) Before Mayor Sergei Sobyanin came to power in 2010, Guram Bolkvadze, a businessman from Georgia, owned 24 kiosks at bus stops across Moscow. Then one day, he was given just a few hours to get his goods out of the shops before the bulldozers came in and leveled 18 […]
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