(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, October 23, 2013) The failures of Russia today are connected with the fact that everyone in it including the authorities, the population, the church and those separate from the church remain in a cultural sense “Soviet people” with all “the complexes” that entails, according to Academician Yury Pivovarov Pivovarov, director […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Vladimir Goryachev and Christopher Brennan – October 24, 2013) The Investigative Committee said it had dropped the piracy charges against 30 people who were on board Greenpeace’s Arctic Sunrise ship, replacing them with accusations of hooliganism. If convicted of the new charges, the 28 activists and two journalists who were taken into custody in September […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Andrew McChesney – October 24, 2013) Moscow has angrily denied that one of its diplomats in Washington tried to recruit young Americans to spy for Russian intelligence agencies, calling the allegations a “horror story” reminiscent of the Cold War. The spy flap centering around the 59-year-old head of a Kremlin-funded cultural exchange program raises the […]
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(Interfax – October 23, 2013) A report published on the website of the Human Rights Council under the Russian president says practically all the cases in which the Prosecutor-General’s Office (PGO) accused NGOs of being in breach of the controversial recent law on “foreign agents” have been thrown out by courts, privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax reported on 23 October. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova – October 24, 2013) Gazprom’s Prirazlomnaya platform, the advance guard of the coming expansion of Russia’s state energy corporations into the Arctic, is a cobbled together bric-a-brac of second-hand parts, some of which date to 1984, environmentalists said. The very presence of the Prirazlomnaya rig in the icy Pechora Sea is the result […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Yaroslava Kiryukhina, RBTH – October 23, 2013) Just several months after granting temporary asylum to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, Russia prepares to implement electronic surveillance that looks similar to the infamous PRISM. But is it actually the same? Russia’s Communications Ministry has drafted an order that would require Internet providers to install monitoring […]
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MOSCOW, October 24 (Nabi Abdullaev, RIA Novosti) – Investigators say that moments after Naida Asiyalova, a wan 30-year-old from Russia’s violence-plagued republic of Dagestan, boarded a public bus one afternoon this week in the city of Volgograd, the bomb she was carrying exploded, claiming six lives. The apparent attack serves as another reminder of the grim effectiveness of female suicide […]
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MOSCOW. Oct 23 (Interfax) – Poverty, inflation, corruption and housing shortages are still the main headaches for Russians but migrant labor, which wasn’t on their list of typical worries eight years ago, has since become a serious national problem in their view. More people see ethnic relations as Russia’s main problem than in 2005. About one quarter of the population […]
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[check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List :: 2013-#191 :: 24 October 2013 E-Mail: davidjohnson@starpower.net A project of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs: www.ieres.org JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – October 23, 2013) The list of foreign retailers setting out their stall in Russia will get a colourful addition next year, with US entertainment giant Walt Disney planning to open three themed stores in Moscow and St Petersburg in 2014. The merchandising arm of the film and cartoon maker is set to launch toy […]
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ST. PETERSBURG. Oct 22 (Interfax) – The overall forecast for construction of nuclear power plants in the world in the period to 2030 has returned to the “pre-Fukushima” level, the head of state nuclear corporation Rosatom, Sergei Kiriyenko said Tuesday at the sixth regional public forum on the nuclear industry and public safety. “The geography has changed, understandably this forecast […]
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ST. PETERSBURG. Oct 22 (Interfax) – The Russian economy will have difficulties functioning without migrant workers, former Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said. “Russia will become a country with workforce deficit in the coming years…We currently cannot do without migrant workers. But migration should be regulated, it should be legal,” Kudrin told reporters in St. Petersburg on Tuesday during the […]
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WASHINGTON. Oct 22 (Interfax) – Russia needs to conduct extensive economic policy reform with the emphasis on attracting investment, pursue a firm budget policy and make more efficient use of resources as the post0crisis factors that drove economic growth in the country are now exhausted, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in its annual report on the Russian economy. “Growth […]
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VOLGOGRAD, October 23 (RIA Novosti) The first funerals for the victims of a bomb blast on a bus near the south Russian city of Volgograd were held Wednesday as Russian officials continued their inquiry into the deadly suicide bombing. The suspected female suicide bomber, identified as 30-year-old Naida Asiyalova, from Dagestan, blew herself up on the bus Monday, killing […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Anna Arutunyan – October 23, 2013) Police have uncovered some 2,000 apartments housing illegal migrants in the southern Moscow district of Biryulyovo, where nationalist riots broke out earlier this month over the stabbing death of a Russian by a suspected foreigner. The figures were the latest in an ongoing crackdown on migrants in the wake […]
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[check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List :: 2013-#190 :: 23 October 2013 E-Mail: davidjohnson@starpower.net A project of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs: www.ieres.org JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support […]
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Johnson’s Russia List :: 2013-#189 :: 22 October 2013 E-Mail: davidjohnson@starpower.net A project of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs: www.ieres.org JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php POLITICS 1. Bloomberg: Russian Suicide Bomb Spurs Terror Alert as Putin Meet […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Dmitry Babich, special to RBTH – October 21, 2013) Dmitry Babich is a columnist for Voice of Russia radio. Is the former NSA analyst a modern-day dissident? There are many interesting similarities between Edward Snowden and the famous Russian dissident writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008). The most recent example of these is the interview […]
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MOSCOW. Oct 21 (Interfax) – The investment appeal of Russia’s Far East has been seriously hampered by Soviet stereotypes of economic regionalism with a focus on the European part of Russia, when the focus should be on the Asia-Pacific region, Far East Development Minister Alexander Galushka believes. “We’ve had to face a fairly large number of stereotypes in the formation […]
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GORKI. Oct 21 (Interfax) – The world’s largest companies are planning to increase investments in Russia soon, Mark Weinberger, Global Chairman & CEO of Ernst & Young, said. Weinberger told journalists after a Foreign Investment Advisory Council meeting that “68% of the companies who invest in Russia are planning on increasing investments soon.” He also said that “if we look […]
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(Interfax – October 21, 2013) Russia’s representative at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has welcomed the court’s ruling on Russia’s handling of its investigation into the 1940 Katyn massacre of more than 20,000 Polish prisoners-of-war by the Soviet secret police, the privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax reported on 21 October. Earlier in the day the ECHR ruled […]
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MOSCOW, October 22 (RIA Novosti) Ukraine and Georgia will not accede to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) next year, its top official said Tuesday, dismissing speculation that two of Russia’s most strategically important neighbors might be joining. Ukraine has decided to abandon its long-standing bid to join NATO, Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told journalists in Brussels on […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – October 22, 2013) Russia’s state-owned development bank, VEB, agreed to borrow $1.9 billion from Chinese lenders, as part of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to Beijing on Tuesday. But Medvedev used the occasion to call for more direct investment between the two countries, which would take economic ties up a notch, rather than relying on […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber – October 22, 2013) President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met for bilateral talks in Moscow on Monday, signing a series of agreements to enhance economic and scientific cooperation, but failing to reach a consensus on the future of a Russian-operated nuclear power plant in southern India. Putin and Singh […]
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(RIA Novosti – October 21, 2013) Russian State Duma MPs have downplayed the significance of the Communications Ministry’s draft decree requiring internet service providers to install equipment for storing internet traffic and sharing it with the Federal Security Service (FSB), Russian news agencies reported on 21 October. The Russian heavyweight liberal newspaper Kommersant reported earlier on the same day that […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Sergei Markedonov, special to RBTH – October 22, 2013) The author is a visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. Migration policies and xenophobia in Russia are at the forefront of political discussion in the wake of the riots in Biryulyovo. Riots in Moscow’s West Biryulyovo have […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Delphine d’Amora – October 22, 2013) A bill submitted to the State Duma on Tuesday could add NGOs engaged in the fight with illegal immigration to the list of organizations that the government is authorized to support. The law currently sanctions government aid for organizations involved in 12 areas of social work, such as disaster […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Delphine d’Amora – October 22, 2013) The Russian education system is increasingly unable to meet the demands of the country’s labor market and shows little ability to fill vacancies in high-skill industries, according to a study released Tuesday. The second annual Hays Global Skills Index, published by global recruitment company Hays in association with Oxford […]
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(Government.ru – October 21, 2013) The FIAC discussed technical regulation issues, the lifting of administrative obstacles, improving customs legislation for investors, the development of the banking sector and financial markets in Russia, trade and the consumer sector, as well as innovations-based development. Dmitry Medvedev’s introductory remarks Transcript: Dmitry Medvedev: Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, colleagues. It has become a good […]
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MOSCOW, October 21 (RIA Novosti) Russian President Vladimir Putin signed off Monday on the introduction of stiffer penalties for smoking in public as the government continues in its battle to improve health standards in the country. The law sets fines of up to 3,000 rubles ($94) for smoking in public places designated as no smoking areas. The steepest fines […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – October 21, 2013) The introduction of the widely discussed new real estate tax that is set to replace the old system of levying fees on property with a market-oriented approach will not take place until 2015, a news report said. The bill was submitted to the government in August, but needs to be revised and […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, October 21, 2013) Because Vladimir Putin has reversed the steps Boris Yeltsin took in the direction of federalization and has been able to restore “the empire in the most petty details,” the Russian Federation “inevitably faces” the same fate that the USSR met with in 1991, according to a Russian analyst. In […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Yulia Ponomareva, RBTH – October 17, 2013) As Lavrov’s achievements in the negotiations regarding the destruction of chemical weapons in Syria put him in the spotlight, RBTH takes a look at the man beyond his political persona. The agreement on the destruction of Syrian chemical weapons, which was reached on September 14, 2013, […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, October 21, 2013) A Russian telecommunications giant has slammed government plans to give security services complete access to all Internet traffic by the middle of 2014, calling them unconstitutional, Kommersant newspaper reported Monday. The daily cited a letter submitted by mobile operator Vimpelcom to the Press and Communications Ministry as saying the proposed legislation violated fundamental […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Marina Obrazkova, RBTH – October 22, 2013) Russia may have to review its immigration policy in the wake of mass protests and rioting in Moscow. Last week, the southern Moscow district of Biryulevo was gripped by mass protests; the protesters demanded changes to Russian immigration policy. An RBTH correspondent looks at why the […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, October 21, 2013) Orhan Zeynalov was driven by hooliganism when he murdered resident of Moscow’s Biryulyovo district Yegor Shcherbakov, the Russian Investigative Committee said. “Zeynalov has been charged with committing a murder driven by hooliganism,” Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin told Interfax on Friday. According to investigators’ information, “Zeynalov denies the charges brought against him, and, as […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, October 21, 2013) Russians have mixed feelings about the country’s development scenarios in the near future. Some are optimistic and others suggest pessimistic scenarios, the Russian Public Opinion Studies Center (VTsIOM) told Interfax on Monday. Over a third of Russians (36%) claim a hard period is in store for the country. Most of such opinions are voiced […]
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(RIA Novosti – Natalia Antonova, Acting Editor-in-Chief, The Moscow News – October 22, 2013) Perhaps one of the saddest aspects of the suicide bombing in Volgograd this week assuming we were forced to pick one such aspect is the amount of young people caught up in it. Among the wounded is a toddler. On top of that, that […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Henry Meyer and Ilya Arkhipov – October 22, 2013) Russian investigators probed yesterday’s suicide bombing that killed six bus passengers in Volgograd as the southern region was placed on high alert hours before President Vladimir Putin met Muslim clerics. The suspected female suicide bomber arrived from the capital of the mainly Muslim region of Dagestan, disembarking […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Andrei Ilyashenko, special to RBTH – October 21, 2013) The only outcome of the Geneva talks between Iran and the ‘group of six’ was an agreement to hold a new round of talks in November. A group of six mediators and the Iranian delegation recently concluded the latest round of Geneva talks on […]
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(Institute of Modern Russia – http://imrussia.org – Olga Khvostunova – October 15, 2013) Oil price fluctuations that exceed $100 per barrel create comfortable conditions for Russia’s economy, as its budget is balanced at around $90 per barrel. Further escalation of the situation in the Middle East could bring oil prices up, seemingly playing into the Russian government’s hands. But according […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Claire Bigg – October 19, 2013) The Russian presidential human rights council has presented Vladimir Putin with its proposal for a sweeping prison amnesty to mark the 20th anniversary of the country’s adoption of its post-Soviet constitution. Up to one-quarter of the country’s inmates could walk free under the amnesty. Who initiated the planned amnesty? Russian […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, October 21, 2013) The Communications Ministry’s draft decree on the special services’ access to Internet traffic is not a novelty and does not contradict Russian legislation,” the ministry press service told Interfax on Monday. “This decree is not new. Besides, it doesn’t regulate the procedure governing the provision of Internet users’ data to the special services,” the […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, October 19, 2013) The Russian Communist Party intends to more actively involve migrants in protest rallies “to strengthen the international component of the protest movement,” a draft decree the Central Committee of the Communist Party is expected to adopt at a plenum held in the village of Moskovsky on Saturday says. The Central Committee’s departments on nationalities […]
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(Interfax – GORKI, October 21, 2013) Russia’s gross domestic product will grow 2% this year in the best-case scenario, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told the consulting council for foreign investments in Russia in Gorki on Monday. “In the eight months of 2013, Russian GDP grew 1.5%, although in 2012 there was four and some percent. The expectation for growth [this […]
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(Interfax / Religion – Moscow, October 18, 2013) The Moscow Patriarchate has called on people of other religions for dialogue aimed at finding real solutions to social problems. “It is very important not to limit religious dialogue to statements on friendship and peace. We did it all under the Soviets and in the first years after the collapse of the […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Natalia Antonova, Acting Editor-in-Chief, October 18, 2013) The weekly sweeps targeting illegal migrants in Moscow are certainly an ambitious project. It’s just too bad that they won’t do much good. The police plan on going door-to-door, to find out exactly where and from whom that migrants are renting living space, according to Moscow Police Chief […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Natalya Krainova – October 21, 2013) In the latest step by authorities to fight unlawful immigration following an anti-migrant riot earlier this month, the city’s police chief said that Moscow police will raid apartments reportedly occupied by illegal migrants every Friday until the end of the year. The initiative, announced by top cop Anatoly Yakunin […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Delphine d’Amora – October 21, 2013) Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has said that he conferred with President Vladimir Putin about the decision to allow opposition leader Alexei Navalny to participate in the mayoral election on Sept. 8, confirming widespread speculations at the time. Putin and First Deputy Chief of Staff Vyacheslav Volodin “had a positive attitude […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, October 21, 2013) The time has come for the federal government to hand additional powers over to the regions, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov told a world economic forum in Moscow. “It’s time indeed to transfer additional powers to the regions,” he said. “Certain financial resources could also be additionally provided to the municipal level,” he […]
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