(Interfax – May 27, 2013) Former Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, whose current 11-year prison term expires in 2014, has reiterated he has no plans to get involved in political activities after his release. “I don’t seek a political career, something I’ve said many times,” Khodorkovsky told German newspaper Die Tageszeitung in an interview transcript which is re-posted on his […]
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(RIA Novosti – SKOLKOVO, May 28, 2013) The Russian government believes renewable energy sources have a bright future, and will review its policies toward their broader use, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday. “At the moment, the use of renewable energy sources and green energy is far from what we would like it to be. We probably use […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Ekaterina Loushnikov – May 25, 2013) Ekaterina Loushnikova is radio and print journalist based in the city of Kirov Charismatic opposition leader Aleksey Navalny is on trial in the provincial capital of Kirov, 900km from Moscow. He is controversially accused of stealing timber worth 16 million roubles in 2009; if found guilty, he will spend his next few […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Tom Balmforth – MOSCOW – May 28, 2013) When Vkontakte.ru briefly appeared on a government blacklist of banned websites last week, it raised eyebrows. Russia’s leading social network isn’t just a place where friends connect, make plans, and share experiences. It’s also one of the main platforms the opposition has used to organize its activities across […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Anna Arutunyan & Kristen Blyth – May 27, 2013) Life as a pollster is hard enough. For the Levada Center, considered Russia’s only independent polling organization, life just got harder. “Imagine if someone comes to you and says, ‘I’m a foreign agent, please answer some questions,’” Levada Center Director Lev Gudkov told The Moscow News. […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – MOSCOW BLOG – May 27, 2013) There has been a lot of noise about the possibility of Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev being sacked and replaced by the former finance minister Alexei Kudrin. We think it will happen just not yet, but possibly as soon as this autumn. Russian President Vladimir Putin is […]
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(Interfax – May 25, 2013) Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that to move forward Russia needs to look back at its traditions and roots, Interfax news agency reported on 25 May, quoting the Kremlin’s website. In a message on the occasion of the unveiling of a monument to Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Germogen (Hermogenes), Putin says: “Today’s […]
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(RIA Novosti – BLAGOVESHCHENSK, May 26, 2013) – Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has said dismissals are quite possible amid criticism of the Cabinet’s work and has instructed his ministers to work hard. “The government’s resignation will necessarily take place, the question is only when,” Medvedev said in the Central Television with Vadim Takmenyov program on NTV on Sunday. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – May 27, 2013) Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that his personal relationship with President Vladimir Putin is an indication that he will not be dismissed. Medvedev, speaking in an interview aired on NTV television late Sunday, sought to lay to rest speculation that his time might be short in a Cabinet facing criticism from lawmakers […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Leonid Bershidsky – May 23, 2013) President Vladimir Putin’s popularity throughout much of Russia is founded on an implicit social compact: People have given up some freedom in return for economic prosperity. Now, Putin’s authoritarian ways could be killing the economic growth that has helped keep him in power. Time and time again, Russia’s leaders have […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Brian Whitmore – May 23, 2013) When photos of Vladislav Surkov hanging out and fishing with the powerful Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov appeared online recently, it raised some eyebrows but was viewed mainly as an odd curiosity. Kadyrov said Surkov, whose resignation as deputy prime minister and government chief of staff was made public on May […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Bratersky – May 24, 2013) President Vladimir Putin, who was expected during a meeting with more than a hundred entrepreneurs on Thursday to give a nod to the State Duma to draft an amnesty act freeing thousands of imprisoned business people, said the concept needed more work, Russian television reported Thursday. Putin said at […]
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(Interfax – May 23, 2013) Russian President Vladimir Putin has instructed Prime Minister Dmitriy Medvedev to work out and confirm a plan for the federal executive authorities’ work, aimed at fulfilling the presidential policy decrees signed by Putin at the start of his third presidential term in May 2012, privately-owned Interfax news agency reported on 23 May. Five-year plan The […]
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(Institute of Modern Russia – imrussia.org – Tatiana Stanovaya – May 23, 2013) The Russian media have already said goodbye to Vladislav Surkov and talked about the end of his era once. This was in December 2011, as mass protest rallies heated up in the country. Recently, Surkov left the government again, but this time, he left for nowhere. Political […]
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(Interfax – May 23, 2013) First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov has said there will be no recession in Russia in 2013, Russian Interfax news agency reported on 23 May. “The will be no recession this year. This is my short answer,” Shuvalov said at a briefing on 23 May. He said that currently the economy was not in a […]
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(Interfax – May 23, 2013) Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov does not think that Russia will have a recession this year. “There won’t be a recession this year. Short answer,” he said at a Thursday briefing. The economy is not currently in a crisis situation. The issue is that the government is not satisfied with current growth levels […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, May 23, 2013) Federation Council senators consider the (2013 annual) Amnesty International report on Russia to be biased and politically motivated. “This organization’s report once again criticizes the human rights situation, and Amnesty International is consistent when it comes to this. On the whole, the report is, as always, biased and politically motivated,” the head of the […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, May 23, 2013) Some political experts say that the annual report of Amnesty International human rights organization on the state of human rights in Russia is a political order based on statements coming from radical opposition. “On the one hand, conclusions made in the report are based on the opinions of opposition radicals, on the other, they […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Jonathan Earle – May 24, 2013) Sergei Prikhodko, a foreign policy advisor to Russia’s leaders for more than 15 years, has been appointed a deputy prime minister and government chief of staff. He assumes the role of head organizer for a government that has been battered by accusations of poor work in recent months. Experts […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova – May 23, 2013) Alexei Navalny, the opposition leader currently on trial for fraud, has expressed certainty that he has slim chances of getting a not guilty verdict, and he is almost certainly right. The inevitability of the ruling is not due to the fact that he is such an outspoken critic of […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Grigorii Golosov – May 22, 2013) Grigorii Golosov is Professor of Political Science, Project Director, Center for Democracy and Human Rights Helix, St. Petersburg A concession or a ruse to ensure continued authoritarian rule? In the second of two articles examining changes in Russia’s electoral architecture, Grigorii Golosov considers the recent relaxation of Russia’s party registration rules. Between […]
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(Interfax – Sochi, May 22, 2013) Dmitriy Peskov, press secretary to the Russian president, has described reports that the Kremlin was taking film-making under its control as fiction but stressed that films produced with state money should have matching content. “A number of mass media outlets, including the (business) newspaper Vedomosti, have said that all of Surkov’s (Vladislav Surkov, once […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – May 23, 2013) Amnesty International said Vladimir Putin’s return to the Kremlin was marked by large-scale attacks on freedom of assembly and of expression, resulting in a large number of politically motivated criminal cases and repressive legislation. “Two new laws and 11 amendments to current legislation were made last year amid broadly weakened dissent,” head […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Guennadi Moukine – May 22, 2013) The role of the government is to provide infrastructure and facilitate technological development and innovation, Communications and Press Minister Nikolai Nikiforov told business representatives at the Leaders’ Club forum on Tuesday. Information technology is important for the Russian economy, Nikiforov said. It accounts for 4.6 percent of the nation’s […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, May 21, 2013) Most Russians (57%) think that state should not interfere in church affairs and vice versa, poll conducted by the Levada Center showed. At the same time, 30% respondents said they thought state and church should participate actively in each others’ affairs and 14% failed to answer. When asked who is to punish people insulting […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, May 21, 2013) The head of Russia’s oldest human rights organization, the Moscow Helsinki Group, Lyudmila Alekseyeva, has said that the draft bill on the protection of believers’ feelings passed by the State Duma in the second reading (today) violates human rights and contravenes the Constitution, despite softening amendments. “This is yet another repressive bill,” Alekseyeva told […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Bratersky – May 22, 2013) In an attempt to squash media reports and assure investors, Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said Tuesday that he had no plans to leave government and intended to help guide the country’s economic course at least until the next presidential election in 2018. Dvorkovich, speaking at a news conference […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, May 22, 2012) Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said he was not ready to part with any of the current ministers, but dismissals are possible in connection with the recently introduced law banning officials from keeping their money in foreign banks. “The government is a team. I have proposed their [ministers’] candidacies to the president and […]
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(Interfax – May 21, 2013) Russian Prime Minister Dmitriy Medvedev has given a wide ranging interview to the pro-Kremlin tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda to mark the anniversary of the formation of the current government, privately-owned Interfax news agency reported on 21 May. The interview is to be published in the newspaper’s 22 May edition. The topics highlighted by Interfax were: – […]
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(Interfax – May 21, 2013) The protest mood in Russia is low, Interfax news agency reported on 21 May, citing a poll conducted by independent Russian pollster Levada Centre. According to the poll results published on the Levada Centre website on the same day (http://www.levada.ru/21-05-2013/gotovnost-uchastvovat-v-protestakh), 68 per cent of respondents said mass protests against falling living standards or in support […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, May 21, 2013) Head of the Russian State Duma’s International Affairs Committee, the United Russia member, Alexei Pushkov, said that former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin was responsible for the current state of the Russian economy. “Kudrin is better not to say anything on the current state of the economy. He is directly guilty of it. GDP dropped […]
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(RIA Novosti – KIROV, May 22, 2013) Russia’s beleaguered opposition figurehead, Alexei Navalny, was given a boost in his fight against controversial embezzlement charges on Wednesday when a regional governor testified in his favor. Navalny and a former political ally, Kirov businessman Pyotr Ofitserov, are charged with heading a criminal group that investigators say embezzled 16 million rubles’ ($500,000) […]
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(RIA Novosti – Moscow, May 21, 2013) The Russian Orthodox Church will never recognize same-sex marriages, even though it respects people’s free choice even if it is sinful, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia said on Tuesday (21 May) at a meeting with the secretary-general of the Council of Europe, Thorbjoern Jagland. “If people choose such a way of […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Yulia Ponomareva, RBTH – May 20, 2013) You may have never watched Soviet television in the 1980s, but if you’re curious and would like to get a flavor, tune in to the newly launched Public TV channel. Across the political spectrum, commentators agree that many of the Russian government’s initiatives over the past […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Jonathan Earle – May 21, 2013) Russia is facing a renewed barrage of international criticism, led by the European Union, over its human rights record in connection with an ongoing clampdown on non-governmental organizations and a State Duma proposal to ban so-called “homosexual propaganda.” The EU on Friday expressed growing concerns about the situation, including […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimews.com – May 21, 2013) Former deputy prime minister Vladislav Surkov has ridiculed the English version of the government’s new official website presented by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Monday. Surkov posted in his Twitter blog a screenshot of the new site’s introductory page with comments pointing to obvious grammatical errors as well as awkward translation into […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, May 20, 2013) Russia’s Communist Party sees the government’s performance for the past year as “purely negative,” one of the party leaders said. “It’s not just that we in principle have different views on what social and economic course to take. On top of that, they haven’t even addressed what they themselves declared to be priority tasks,” […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Brian Whitmore – May 20, 2013) If Russian President Vladimir Putin ever actually appoints Aleksei Kudrin as his prime minister, we’ll know that one of two things happened: Either Putin decided to radically change course or Kudrin shamelessly sold out. In the weeks since Kudrin made a surprise appearance at Putin’s annual live call-in program with […]
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(Moscow News – Anna Arutunyan – Anna Arutunyan is a correspondent and editor at themoscownews.com – May 20, 2013) It’s been two weeks since Vladislav Surkov left the government amid a swirl of subterfuge and guesswork. The man himself was soon off fishing with Ramzan Kadyrov in Chechnya, but the questions of why he left and what will happen now […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, May 20, 2013) The new bill on mixed elections to the Russian State Duma will become the basis for the development of the political system in the country, however it is difficult to forecast what this system would be like in five years, State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin said on Monday. “In my point of view, this […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Grigorii Golosov – May 20, 2013) Grigorii Golosov is Professor of Political Science, Project Director, Center for Democracy and Human Rights Helix, St. Petersburg Recent protest rallies and continuing opposition sentiment have provoked the Kremlin into reform. The first part of the process sees the partial return of regional governor elections, abandoned nine years ago in favour of […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, May 20, 2013) Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu is the most popular and one of the most influential members of Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s government, a survey among prominent figures in the media and politics suggests. First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov are the others in the top troika on a 28-name […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Elena Shipilova, RBTH – May 20, 2013) Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich talks to RBTH about the country’s current economic problems, investment climate, energy sector and upcoming St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. Russian Deputy Prime Minister, Arkady Dvorkovich, speaks to Russia Beyond The Headlines about the problems of the Russian economy, access […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Natalya Krainova – May 20, 2013) The ruling United Russia party kicked off a massive two-day forum with members from regional branches in Moscow on Friday, where it lauded its social and infrastructure projects, some three months before September regional and municipal elections. Raising the forum’s profile, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who chairs the party, […]
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(Interfax – May 20, 2013) Former Russian Finance Minister and head of the Fund for Civil Initiatives Alexei Kudrin has said that the law on NGOs as foreign agents does not promote civil society in Russia. “The law on NGOs as foreign agents that the Duma has passed is a clear restriction of civil society,” he said at the Open […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, May 19, 2013) Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich has highly appraised the government’s performance in its first year and said interaction between the Cabinet and the Kremlin administration was efficient enough. “I think a large amount of work has been done over the year and results have been achieved in some areas, although not in all,” Dvorkovich […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, May 17, 2013) Homophobia is rather common in Russian society and attitudes toward the LGBT community have been changing slowly throughout the past year, sociologists said. The same as a year ago, three-fourths of Russians brand gays and lesbians as morally loose (43%) or mentally deficient persons (35%). Only 12% acknowledge homosexuality’s right to existence, the Levada […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Kristen Blyth – May 20, 2013) “Homosexuality is not a perversion. Perversion is hockey on grass and ballet on ice!” reads one picket sign, held aloft by a middle-aged man. “Against all forms of discrimination,” proclaims another, held by a young woman. “My gender is my choice,” says a third. The scene was Moscow Pride. […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, May 16, 2013) A poll conducted by the Levada Center shows that the majority of Russians are confident that Russia does not need a monarchy and Russia’s last emperor Nicholas II was not the best leader. The 145th anniversary of the birth of Russia’s last Emperor Nicholas II will be marked on May 19. The study shows […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Julia Reed in Moscow – May 17, 2013) In an April 5 interview to the German channel ARD, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that in the four months after the July law on non-government organisations (NGOs) that brands those that accept donations from aboard as “foreign agents” has been adopted, 654 Russian NGOs received […]
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