KYIV. April 22 (Interfax) – The voter turnout in the second round of the Ukrainian presidential election on Sunday reached 61.37%, which is less than in the first round of March 31, Ukrainian Central Elections Commission (CEC) Chairperson Tetiana Slipachuk said. “It turned out that the turnout in the second round was lower than on March 31. According to tentative […]
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“With Ukraine’s establishment forecasting doom after the presidential runoff, the far right’s influence on politics is impossible to ignore. Its resurgence is both a symptom and a cause of the country’s ills: there is less daylight between it and the political mainstream than either admits.” “… Zelensky’s campaign has hinged on shying away from policy specifics …. appealing to voters […]
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(Interfax – April 21, 2019) Moscow is most hopeful that the winner in Ukraine’s presidential election will possess an ability to negotiate and a willingness to implement ceasefire commitments in Donbass, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said. Speaking in the lead-up to the second round of voting, Lavrov suggested Russia gave little weight to campaign statements made by either […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, April 16, 2019) On the centenary of the establishment of the GULAG that he did so much to expand (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=5CB56680ECD4C), the Levada Center polling agency released the results of a survey showing 70 percent of Russians have a positive attitude toward the Soviet dictator, the highest share ever (rbc.ru/politics/16/04/2019/5cb0bb979a794780a4592d0c). Not surprisingly, this […]
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(Kennan Institute – wilsoncenter.org/program/kennan-institute – Serhiy Kudelia – April 11, 2019 – wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/could-zelensky-presidency-prove-breakthrough-for-conflict-resolution-the-donbas) Serhiy Kudelia is an associate professor of political science at Baylor University, where he teaches courses on ethnopolitical conflicts, terrorism, political regimes, and post-Soviet politics. Five years since the start of the armed conflict in Donbas, its resolution remains the top concern of most Ukrainian voters, with […]
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(Article text ©2019 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – April 13, 2019 – article text also appeared at rferl.org/a/russia-u-s-ambassador-huntsman-reaffirms-support-ukraine-s-integrity-talks/29878614.html) The U.S. ambassador to Russia said Washington was committed to defending Ukraine’s territorial integrity, saying the issue of Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and the conflict in eastern Ukraine was “a core part of our estrangement with Russia.” In […]
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(Article text ©2019 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – April 8, 2019 – article text also appeared at rferl.org/a/russian-director-serebrennikov-freed-from-house-arrest/29867678.html) A Moscow court has ordered the release of theater director Kirill Serebrennikov and two associates from house arrest. The three are on trial in an embezzlement case they claim is politically motivated. In an April 8 ruling, the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – April 8, 2019) A majority of Russians support their country’s membership in the Council of Europe (CoE) human rights watchdog, according to two surveys published Monday. Russia was suspended from the CoE parliamentary assembly in 2014 in protest of Moscow’s behavior toward Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea. In response, Russia halted annual payments to […]
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Subject: Some information on solzhenitsyncenter.org Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2019 From: Yermolai Solzhenitsyn <yermolai_solzhenitsyn@mckinsey.com> To: davidjohnson@starpower.net Dear David, We saw recently a piece on JRL Russia Insider, russia-insider.com, March 18, 2019 Great Russian Documentary on Life of Alexander Solzhenitsyn (Video) [https://russia-insider.com/en/great-russian-documentary-life-alexander-solzhenitsyn-video/ri26536], where the authors were wondering whether there were English language copies of all the three films in question. We […]
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MOSCOW. March 22 (Interfax) – The Social Engineering Agency has been set up in Russia as a new analytical center to develop measures to oppose color revolutions, State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee head Leonid Slutsky said. “In my view, this is a grand idea. It’s the first time that steps to prevent the implementation of scenarios inspired from the outside […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – March 22, 2019) Business ombudsman Boris Titov has appealed to federal prosecutors over a group of Russian businessmen currently being held in pre-trial detention. Russia’s business community has expressed growing concern over the pre-trial detention of U.S. investor Michael Calvey, who has been held on embezzlement charges since Feb. 14. President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday […]
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(Kremlin.ru – March 20, 2019 – en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/60116) The President held a regular meeting with Government members. President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, colleagues. I have something to tell you before we begin. We are aware of the political events that are unfolding in a neighboring country, which is our closest ally. They are about changes in the political leadership. […]
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“The detention … of Michael Calvey, founder of the Baring Vostok private equity group, has strained U.S.-Russia ties and stoked talk of a possible U.S. boycott of an annual economic forum in June attended by … Putin. Calvey was detained along with three other executives from Baring Vostok after investigators accused them of stealing 2.5 billion roubles ($38.09 million), a […]
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(Kennan Institute – wilsoncenter.org/program/kennan-institute – Maxim Trudolyubov – March 18, 2019 – wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/russias-missed-opportunity-five-years-crimeas-annexation) Maxim Trudolyubov is a Senior Fellow at the Kennan Institute and the Editor-at-Large of Vedomosti, an independent Russian daily. The logic of Russian politicians who made an unexpected decision five years ago to annex the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea was not economic or political. It was a […]
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MOSCOW. March 19 (Interfax) – Prosecutors must step up monitoring of conditions in jails and prisons, President Vladimir Putin said. “The penal system must remain under the constant scrutiny of prosecutors,” Putin said at a meeting with senior prosecution officials on Tuesday. “Together with colleagues from the [Federal Penitentiary Service] FSIN, regional human rights commissioners and representatives from human rights […]
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(Moscow Times – Evan Gershkovich – March 10, 2019 – themoscowtimes.com/2019/03/10/point-of-no-return-russias-libertarians-lead-protest-against-sovereign-internet-a64758) It was Saturday afternoon and Mikhail Svetov was buzzing with nervous energy. Just 24 hours later, the member of Russia’s Libertarian Party would be leading a protest against a draft bill aimed at creating a so-called sovereign internet. “I see signals that something unusual is happening. Something similar to […]
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LUHANSK. March 9 (Interfax) – The self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) is urging Ukraine to settle the Donbas conflict through direct dialogue, the LPR representative in the Trilateral Contact Group’s humanitarian subgroup, Olga Kobtseva, said. “It is necessary to establish direct dialogue in addition to the talks between the conflicting parties within Ukraine: Ukraine’s representatives and those from the LPR […]
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“… Poroshenko rivals in the upcoming presidential election are accusing him of ‘profiting from blood’ after an investigation revealed that the son of the president’s close business partner has been selling arms to separatist rebels in the breakaway eastern region of Donbas … [according to] a report broadcast on Ukrainian TV …. Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who leads the […]
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(Article text ©2019 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – Carl Schreck – February 26, 2019 – article text also appeared at rferl.org/a/from-not-us-to-why-hide-it-how-russia-denied-its-crimea-invasion-then-admitted-it/29791806.html) In the darkness of the morning on February 27, 2014, heavily armed men wearing green uniforms with no identifying insignia stormed the regional parliament in Simferopol, the capital of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, and raised the […]
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(Kennan Institute – wilsoncenter.org/program/kennan-institute – Maxim Trudolyubov – February 19, 2019 – wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/russia-risk-its-feature-not-bug) Maxim Trudolyubov is a Senior Fellow at the Kennan Institute and the Editor-at-Large of Vedomosti, an independent Russian daily. In a story both typical of Russian business practices and so unusual as to bring a response from Putin’s key business allies, the American investor Michael Calvey and […]
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“Kremlin officials were touting Russia’s investment opportunities at a [Sochi resort] conference … when news trickled out that one of the country’s last remaining American investors had been thrown behind bars. Michael Calvey … founder of Moscow-based private equity fund manager Baring Vostok, remained one of the last Russia bulls at a time when most of his contemporaries had left […]
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(Article text ©2019 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – February 19, 2019 – article text also appeared at rferl.org/a/russian-official-calls-us-investor-s-detention-emergency-for-economy-/29778434.html) A longtime former finance minister who is close to President Vladimir Putin has called the arrest of a prominent American investment-fund manager an “emergency” for the Russian economy, suggesting it could further damage the country’s image and harm the […]
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“The Russia-Ukraine conflict has moved from cozy mutual exploitation to lethal hostility. Neither side is prepared to admit its deep dependence on the other. Five years after the Ukraine crisis began, and as the presidential campaign gets under way in that country, it is conventional to see Russia’s intervention there and Ukraine’s response as a modern example of interstate power […]
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KYIV. Feb 13 (Interfax) – Seventy-two percent of Ukrainians believe that there is a war between Ukraine and Russia, while 15% disagree, according to a nationwide opinion poll conducted by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation and the Razumkov Center and a regional survey conducted in the districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions controlled by Kyiv. Thirty-nine percent of […]
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(Article text ©2019 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – Christopher Miller – KYIV, Jan. 25, 2019 – article text also appeared at rferl.org/a/desperately-seeking-a-postwar-president-in-ukraine/29730680.html) Ukrainians say the biggest problem facing their country ahead of a crucial presidential election in March is the same one that ushered in the current head of state in the first place: war. It’s been […]
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(GlobalVoices – Christopher Moldes – January 26, 2018 – globalvoices.org/2019/01/26/russias-isolationist-sovereign-internet-bill-worries-experts-and-users-alike/) After a bill was introduced in the Russian State Duma (the lower chamber of Russia’s bicameral legislative branch), the Russian government soon plans to discuss the feasibility of creating a so-called “sovereign internet” system. This system would purportedly safeguard networks within Russia from foreign information attacks, and calls for significant […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, January 17, 2019) [Text with links windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/01/growth-of-public-history-in-russia.html] Public history, the trend within the history discipline in many places around the world that seeks to rely on the digitalization of personal memoirs, diaries, and photographs of ordinary people to present the past from below, has come to Russia and is “democratizing memory” in […]
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“… the State Duma … adopted amendments to … partially decriminalise … [criminal] code[] Article 282 … widely used for … offences involving social media content. As reported by … Meduza, first-time offenders will now face … misdemeanour charges, risking a RUB20,000 fine ($287 at the current exchange rate) or a 15-day jail sentence, instead of felony charges and a […]
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MOSCOW. Jan 14 (Interfax) – The Russian Justice Ministry is beginning to inspect the Memorial Scientific Research and Education Center on January 14 to see if it is fulfilling the functions of a foreign agent NGO, International Memorial’s press service said. The organization has provided all the documents the ministry requested, the press service said. “The Memorial Scientific Research and […]
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“Article 31 of the Russian Constitution states that citizens of the Russian Federation ‘shall have the right to assemble peacefully.’ However, when protests are not approved by local authorities, those who join them can face arrest, professional consequences, and even criminal charges. The anti-corruption protests that swept Russia on March 26 and June 12, 2017, as well as the Voters’ […]
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“Highlights Russia has arrested an American corporate security director, Paul Whelan, but he doesn’t have the profile befitting a non-official cover intelligence officer, even though there are elements in his background that would bring him to the attention of the Kremlin’s security services. Russian authorities arrested Whelan not long after Russian citizen Maria Butina pleaded guilty in a U.S. court […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, January 7, 2019) According to a new report by Russia’s state statistical agency, Rosstat, 35 million Russians live in houses or apartments without indoor toilets, 47 million do not have hot water, 29 million don’t have any running water inside their residences, and 22 million do not have central heating (ehorussia.com/new/node/17679). In […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 28 (Interfax) – President Vladimir Putin has signed the law adjusting Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code. The law passed in the State Duma on December 19 and approved by the Federation Council on December 21 was published on the official Internet portal of legal information on Thursday. The law initiated by the Russian president decriminalizes first-time […]
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“… An ailing Yeltsin is believed to have chosen Putin, a former KGB officer, as his successor, because he had a reputation for loyalty. He knew he could count on Putin to protect him and his family. … [H]e made Putin promise to ‘look after Russia.’ In the eyes of Putin’s supporters, he has … [brought] relative prosperity … making […]
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(Article ©2018 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – MOSCOW – Dec. 11, 2018 – also appeared at rferl.org/a/putin-solzhenitsyn-true-patriot-centenary-birth/29650018.html) President Vladimir Putin has praised late Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as a “true and real patriot” after unveiling a statue honoring the Nobel Prize-winning author in central Moscow. Speaking at the unveiling ceremony marking the centenary of Solzhenitsyn’s birth, Putin […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, December 12, 2018) Many analysts are inclined to blame the presidentialist nature of the 1993 Russian Constitution for the rise of authoritarianism under Vladimir Putin; but Sergey Shelin argues that is a mistake and that Putin’s approach to rule “arose not because a quarter of a century ago this document was adopted.” […]
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(Kremlin.ru – December 11, 2018) The Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights is a consultative body that assists the President in exercising his constitutional authority in the area of protecting human and civil rights and freedoms. Speech at the meeting of the Council for Civil Society and Human Rights President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Colleagues, Today, we bid […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, December 9, 2018) Vladimir Putin casts such a dark shadow on Russia that it is perhaps no surprise that many in the opposition believe, as commentator Aleksandr Rusin puts it today, that finding and installing a new leader is “the chief issue of present-day Russia” and that “everything else is secondary” (publizist.ru/blogs/110401/28399/-). […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 8 (Interfax) – Lyudmila Alexeyeva will forever remain a symbol of the uncompromising struggle for human rights and justice, Russian ombudsman Tatyana Moskalkova said. “A big misfortune has befallen all of Russia. For all the people who did, do and will value democracy, freedom and human rights, Lyudmila Mikhailovna always was and will remain a symbol of honesty […]
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“Late on December 8, Russian human rights icon Lyudmila Alexeyeva passed away at the age of 91. Since the mid-1990s, she led the Moscow Helsinki Group, earning the respect of both state officials and the anti-Kremlin opposition. Alexeyeva worked with everyone equally in pursuit of her mission: the protection of people’s rights by all means available. Meduza’s Andrey Kozenko looks […]
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“Ukraine’s defense ministry warned Russia on Friday that it will soon send navy ships through the Kerch Strait where Russia fired on and seized three Ukrainian vessels two weeks ago. The announcement sets up another possible flashpoint in the long-simmering conflict between Russia and Ukraine that erupted in 2014 with Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula … [O]n Nov. 25 […]
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KIROV. Dec 7 (Interfax) – The Oktyabrsky District Court in Kirov has partially granted the claim of opposition activist Alexei Navalny against the Federal Bailiff Service that banned his international travel. “The claim has been partially satisfied,” a court representative told Interfax on Friday. He added that the hearing was held on December 6. Navalny confirmed the partial satisfaction of […]
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(Video and caption ©2018 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – August 14, 2018 – caption and video also appeared at rferl.org/a/ukraine-maidan-family/29637299.html) “Halyna Trofanyuk joined the mass protests in Kyiv known as the Euromaidan, hoping Ukraine would have a prosperous future and closer ties with the European Union. Five years later, she travels to neighboring Poland for work […]
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(Russia Matters – russiamatters.org – RM Staff – November 30, 2018) [Article also appeared, with different images, at russiamatters.org/blog/rm-picks-what-read-kerch-strait-crisis] Looking to make sense of the events between Russia and Ukraine in the Sea of Azov and their implications? RM recommends the following articles: “Why Putin Is Pressuring Ukraine. The United States needs to decide how much of a threat Moscow’s […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – December 3, 2018) Russia’s top human rights official has called the country’s 2017 decision to adopt a law that decriminalizes domestic abuse “a mistake.” In 2017, Vladimir Putin signed a law that scrapped prison sentences for first-time abusers whose beatings result in “minor harm,” such as small abrasions, bruises and superficial wounds. Since the law […]
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MOSCOW. Dec 3 (Interfax) – Russia has not been obstructing the passage of Ukrainian ships through the Kerch Strait, but traffic gets suspended from time to time, mostly for weather reasons, according to presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov. “They [the allegations of Kyiv’s representatives that Russia is hindering the passage of Ukrainian ships through the Kerch Strait] are not true. […]
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“His frail hand covering his heart, Mykhailo Matvienko, 92, peered at the yellow flame of a candle on his kitchen table on Saturday and recounted his childhood during the Great Famine. A searing event seen as one of the great atrocities of 20th-century Europe, the Ukrainian famine of 1933 killed more than three million people, by most estimates, and has […]
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KYIV. Nov 26 (Interfax) – Several factions in Ukrainian parliament blocked its plenary session on Monday, preventing President Petro Poroshenko from explaining his proposal to impose nationwide martial law, the Petro Poroshenko Bloc faction said. “A number of factions decided to block the rostrum without even allowing the president to reveal what exactly is happening in the Sea of Azov […]
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