Former Duma candidates Marina Litvinovich, Alyona Popova and Oksana Pushkina are launching a project to help women get elected to positions of power […]
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(Paul Goble – Window On Eurasia – Staunton, Sept. 27, 2021) The KPRF’s surprising success in the recent Duma elections does not presage any threat of a communist resurgence – Zyuganov’s party is as far from Lenin’s as Patriarch Kirill is from early Christianity – but it does mean that the party now is confronted by a serious choice, Aleksandr […]
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(Paul Goble – Window On Eurasia – Staunton, Sept. 24, 2021) The Russian elite does not have an explicit ideology but it does have a shared set of beliefs that guide its actions, an ideology that has “grown out of political practice rather than from any philosophy,” Pavel Luzin says. But that does not make it any less influential. Indeed, […]
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MOSCOW. Sept 28 (Interfax) – The Russian Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case against opposition activist Alexei Navalny, who is serving time in a penitentiary in Russia, and his close associates on counts of establishing and participating in the activity of an extremist network. “The Main Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case under Part […]
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(Russia Matters – russiamatters.org – Sept. 24, 2021) The ruling United Russia party retained a two-thirds majority in the lower house of Russia’s parliament, the State Duma, following elections that have been criticized as neither free nor fair by Russia’s opposition and the West. United Russia came away with 50% of the vote that took place Sept. 17-19, winning 324 […]
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Russia held controversial parliamentary elections last weekend that were marred by claims of mass fraud […]
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In a separate development, tens of thousands of pro-government bloggers participated in a coordinated campaign to spread positive reports about the course of the parliamentary elections […]
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(Paul Goble – Window On Eurasia – Staunton, Sept. 20, 2021) “If present trends continue,” Edvard Chesnokov says, “the next generation of Russian rulers will be even more anti-Western than the present one,” the result of the West’s double standards when it comes to Russia and recognition by Russia’s rulers that they must stand up to such pressure. The Komsomolskaya […]
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Nationwide statisticians have estimated that half of the official votes received by United Russia in the election could have been falsified [. ..]
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Independent data scientists and analysts said that half of all the votes attributed to United Russia in the official results were probably fake — a level of falsification previously unseen in Russian parliamentary elections [. ..]
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Russia’s opposition has claimed the vote was the country’s most fraudulent in recent history […]
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Here’s the first thing you need to know about the now-concluded election campaign for Russia’s State Duma: It’s been carefully managed from the start, with the opposition largely barred from running and a crackdown on government opponents that shows no sign of abating […]
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“… Putin has sidelined the last of his independent political opponents, jailing some and driving others into exile, as his ruling party seeks to extend … control in parliamentary elections despite simmering discontent. … United Russia … recorded some of the lowest ratings in nearly a decade earlier this year, scorned by voters angry over stagnant living standards and unpopular […]
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Smart Voting, an idea that Navalny came up with in 2018, is an online strategy designed to promote candidates that have the best chance to defeat those from United Russia, the Kremlin-linked ruling party […]
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“… Putin … said he is isolating because several members of his inner circle tested positive …. that one of the people who tested positive was a vaccinated staff member with whom he had recently interacted ‘very closely in the course of the whole day.’ … Putin has said he was vaccinated with the two-dose regimen of Russia’s Sputnik V […]
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Anastasia Bryukhanova thinks Russia’s political institutions, and its leader, are showing their age […]
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… [M]any wonder who will succeed [Putin], and when. … [T]he Kremlin scrupulously weeds out all charismatic critics. … [P]otential successors from the halls of power have been demoted to irrelevant sinecures. … Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu[] [is] Russia’s longest-serving cabinet member and its second-most popular politician …. [H]e hails from Tuva, an impoverished province of Turkic-speaking Buddhists that borders […]
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During the 2018 presidential election, cameras captured scenes of people stuffing ballot boxes, carousel voting, voters using others’ documents, and the manipulation of voter lists […]
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Russia’s parliamentary elections next week are set to be some of the least competitive in years after a number of independent and opposition candidates were barred from running [….]
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… It’s a dilemma common to many members of Russia’s “systemic opposition” — the patchwork of tame parties allowed to compete on the country’s uneven electoral playing field who are nevertheless coming under increasing pressure […]
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United Russia is polling between 25 and 35 percent, according to the limited opinion surveys that have been conducted publicly […]
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Critics have warned that the system’s lack of transparency and voter-verification safeguards could open the way for vote manipulation […]
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(Paul Goble – Window On Eurasia – Staunton, Sept. 8, 2021) Vladislav Inozemtsev, who has long argued that the Putin system is likely to remain stable for at least another decade, now says that the Kremlin is acting in ways that point to an attempt to fundamentally restructure the Russian political system before the 2024 presidential vote. And such a […]
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The “There Are No Foreign Agents, There Are Journalists” campaign comes as Russian authorities target a growing number of media outlets and individual journalists […]
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Russians [reportedly] are less likely to view economic protests as a possibility than … at the start of the year despite being more willing to take part in such protests themselves […]
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Saransk’s entrepreneurs are divided over whether the government is on their side, but discontent is unlikely to be reflected in the upcoming Duma vote. (Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Jake Cordell – SARANSK, MORDOVIA – Sept. 7, 2021 For barbershop owner Oleg Kechin, the first 18 months of the coronavirus pandemic were a breeze. After shutting for just four weeks […]
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On Sept. 19, Russians will vote in important elections to the country’s State Duma national parliament, the first major test of public opinion since a major crackdown […]
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(Paul Goble – Window On Eurasia – Staunton, Aug. 31, 2021) Because so many Russians have left villages to move to the cities, it is often overlooked that many Russians choose to remain in villages and many who have moved into urban areas nonetheless view village life as preferrable in a variety of ways to the one they find themselves […]
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“There’s an election coming.” “… But going after politicians and the media, and arresting students and activists, is no longer sufficient. The Kremlin is now trying to get a grip over schools and universities in a more systematic way. In the past nine months some 20 universities and institutes across Russia have had their deans replaced. … Russian students and […]
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Thirty years after the failed August 1991 coup in the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the country four months later, it is hard to avoid asking: What led to the demise of that superpower and are the same factors relevant for its successor, today’s Russia?
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Many government critics across Russia have been excluded from participating in the upcoming vote […]
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MOSCOW. Aug 30 (Interfax) – Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny’s press secretary, Kira Yarmysh, has left Russia, two informed sources told Interfax. “Kira Yarmysh has left the territory of the Russian Federation,” one of the sources said. The second source said that she “has gone to Helsinki.” On August 16, the Preobrazhensky Court of Moscow sentenced Yarmysh to 18 months […]
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… the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin accelerates its campaign against independent journalism […]
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… Created in 2000, Golos had notably denounced election rigging in the 2011 parliamentary election and the 2012 presidential vote which saw Putin return to the Kremlin […]
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Thirty years on, The Moscow Times spoke to surviving participants in the events that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the birth of a new Russia. (Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Felix Light – Aug. 18, 2021) In the center of Moscow, hidden behind two lanes of heaving traffic on the New Arbat commercial thoroughfare, stands a […]
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MOSCOW. Aug 18 (Interfax) – Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev blames the organizers of the coup attempt of August 1991 and the signatories to the Belavezha agreements for the collapse of the Soviet Union, calls for defending the principles of democracy, and believes that Russia can develop and solve any problems only on a democratic path. “I believe that the […]
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For the third time in recent days, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu has spoken out about issues beyond those normally viewed as the province of an official in his position. … [I]s he positioning himself to become president, likely with the current Kremlin leader’s blessing? […]
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“On April 12th, the Jordan Center and the Harriman Institute co-hosted a panel on the private sector in Russia as part of the NYC-Russia Public Policy Series. Panelists included Simeon Djankov, Director of Development Economics at the World Bank; Dinissa Duvanova, Associate Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University; Alena Ledeneva, Professor of Politics and Society at University College London; […]
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Putin … said the scale of natural disasters that have hit Russia this year is “absolutely unprecedented” as local officials ask for Moscow’s help to tackle fires and floods […]
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… In the meantime, her team is putting their heads down to fight for every vote and the atmosphere on the street seems very different this time around, with United Russia polling record-low support […]
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“… United Russia … is defending their super majority … but faces increasing challenges due to its own unpopularity and mounting grievances. … [with] a large majority .. key … to ensuring its own cohesion and shoring up legitimacy of the Putin government. … [An] effort to secure the vote results from the government’s need for credibility in … a […]
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As September elections approach, COVID-19 takes a mounting toll and wildfires burn across huge swaths of the country …. The Kremlin crackdown on dissenters, civil society, and independent media continues […]
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(Paul Goble – Window On Eurasia – Staunton, Aug. 4, 2021) The September Duma elections are unlikely to bring any serious surprises in the party composition of the Russian parliament, Elena Zemskova says; but rumors are swirling that the Kremlin, on the one hand, and the three systemic opposition parties, on the other, are unhappy with the current situation. And […]
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[T]he “foreign agents” law has been modified and toughened repeatedly and used increasingly against independent groups ahead of elections[…]
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Three years after the Soviet collapse, Bard and SPSU joined forces to launch SPSU’s Arts and Humanities course, Russia’s first liberal arts curriculum …. But on June 21, … [t]he Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office declared Bard an “undesirable” organization […]
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(Paul Goble – Window On Eurasia – Staunton, July 15, 2021) Russians live in poverty and have the concerns that produces, they don’t trust officials and they don’t fear the West whatever the powers that be say, but despite both of these factors, they want to see Vladimir Putin remain as president, according to a major new study by the […]
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Yabloko stalwarts see little chance of victory in September’s high-stakes elections to the country’s national parliament […]
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(Paul Goble – Window On Eurasia – Staunton, June 25, 2021) Russia’s autocratic government is modern not just because it has reversed the democratization wave of three decades ago but because it is willing to make use of modern techniques in some spheres of life under its control for its direct benefit, according to Gulnaz Sharaftudinova. The Kremlin uses various […]
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… Putin’s live, nationally televised call-in show … will fall about 10 weeks before the flagging popularity of the ruling political party is put to the test in national elections […]
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According to the Levada Center … 28% of Russian respondents said they expect new political protests while 30% anticipated economic protests to erupt […]
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