(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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(Interfax – October 20, 2013) The proportion of Russia’s adult population that accesses the internet on a daily basis is continuing to grow steadily, with almost half now going online at least once a day, according to research from one of the country’s leading polling organizations. In remarks reported by the privately-owned Interfax agency on 17 October, the head of […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, October 19, 2013) While opening an international competition in Russia’s second largest city St. Petersburg on Friday, President Vladimir Putin, an avid judoist, called martial arts “a philosophy” that helps people to gain confidence in themselves. During his opening speech at the World Combat Games 2013, Putin, a judo black belt, said martial arts were, […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Robert Coalson – October 21, 2013) The United States is set to replace Russia as the world’s largest producer of oil and gas combined by the end of this year. This is just one element of a rapidly shifting global energy environment that is revolutionizing Russia’s once-dominant position. RFE/RL takes a look at the challenges and […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, October 21, 2013) Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will discuss prospects of bilateral military and technical cooperation and the situation in Afghanistan and Syria during talks in Kremlin on October 21. The coming meeting between the Russian president and Indian prime minister will be the third one in 2013. “Bilateral military and […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Andrei Kislyakov, special to RBTH – October 20, 2013) Over the past few years, Beijing’s investment in the aerospace sector has rapidly grown. Expert discuss whether China could overtake the leading countries in the industry. According to public data for 2011, China exported $3 billion worth of high-tech goods, including aerospace. The corresponding […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, October 19, 2013) More than two thirds of Russians believe that Arctic territories should not belong to any state, a poll carried out by the Kremlin-backed pollster Public Opinion Foundation (FOM) said on Friday. Only 17 percent of respondents said the Arctic territories should be divided between states, while 69 percent are convinced that the territories […]
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[check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List :: 2013-#188 :: 21 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-#187 ::18 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. Interfax: October poll puts Putin’s approval rating at 62%. 2. ITAR-TASS: […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Daniil Kislov – October 17, 2013) Daniil Kislov is a poet, journalist and essayist from Uzbekistan. He currently lives in Moscow. He is the main editor of the online news portal Fergana News. An ethnic Russian is killed at a Moscow street market, supposedly by a migrant from the Caucasus; the ensuing riot by nationalist extremists leaves one […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – October 18, 2013) Russian companies have been handed middling ratings in an appraisal of 100 companies from 16 emerging markets released by Transparency International. Including six Russian companies metal giants RusAl, Norilsk Nikel Evraz and Severstal, together with energy majors Gazprom and LUKoil on three separate scores, the survey, which was released on […]
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(Interfax – October 18, 2013) The Iranian nuclear problem cannot be resolved without a gradual lift of sanctions against Tehran, and the success of the latest negotiations does not add up to much, Russian Academy of Sciences Oriental Studies Institute Director Vitaly Naumkin said. “This is just the first step and, in my opinion, it is too much early to […]
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(Interfax – KYIV, October 17, 2013) Some 53% of Ukrainians support entry into the European Union, 35% do not and 12% cannot make up their mind, according to the Rating sociological group, which held its poll on September 26 – October 6, 2013. In the opinion of 47% of the respondents, Ukraine will gain more from a free trade zone […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova – October 18, 2013) International pressure on Russia over the arrest of Greenpeace activists mounted Thursday as 11 Nobel Peace Prize winners urged President Vladimir Putin to drop the piracy charges against them. The 11 laureates made such an appeal in a letter sent to the Russian president, Greenpeace said. The letter, which […]
» Read more(Interfax – KYIV, October 17, 2013) Only 20% of Ukrainians support the country’s accession to NATO, according to the Rating sociological group, which held its poll on September 26 – October 6, 2013. A report published on the Rating website said that two-thirds of Ukrainians thought that Ukraine should not join NATO and 15% were hesitant. A relative majority of […]
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(Interfax – VERONA, Italy, October 18, 2013) Many European politicians do not realize that their countries would not benefit from producing shale gas, the head of contract structuring and pricing at LLC Gazprom Export, Sergei Komlev believes. “I think that there is no full understanding of this problem in Europe, particularly an understanding of the production costs of this issue. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anatoly Medetsky – October 18, 2013) Kaluga shines so brightly in the regional investment firmament that it has regularly drawn cheers from President Vladimir Putin and various economists. Some of the reasons why the region, 160 kilometers southwest of Moscow, is leading the way as a target for new business ventures include the decision by […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Sam Skove – October 18, 2013) When Nuri Katz, founder of investment firm Apex Capital, heads for the customs gate, he gets to decide which of his three passports to use – a privilege that his Russian clients would pay up to 5 million euros to enjoy. Katz is in the citizenship-by-investment business. Select […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, October 17, 2013) New Audit Chamber Chairman Tatiana Golikova says she plans to use her experience as a financier when planning changes to the work of the chamber. “I think there will be changes. If only because I have been professionally engaged in finance all my life and I have my own opinion on what to look […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, October 17, 2013) Drinking of alcohol by Russians has dropped by one-quarter over the past three years, according to a leading health official. The Health Ministry’s substance abuse specialist, Yevgeny Bryun, said alcohol consumption per capita currently stands at 13.5 liters of pure ethyl alcohol equivalent, down from 18 liters in 2010. The 2010 figure was […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – October 18, 2013) Russian are the most well educated people in the world, a report by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development said. Russia topped the rankings followed by Canada and Japan. Israel and the United States rounded up the top five. The ranking factored in the percentage of adults in a country who […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, October 18, 2013) The approval rating of Russian President Vladimir Putin stands at 62% in October, sociologists of the All Russian Center for Public Opinion Studies (VTsIOM) told Interfax on Friday. Forty-seven percent of respondents to VTsIOM’s October survey said that Putin’s vast political experience appeals to them (38% in 2011). Thirty-three percent of those polled described […]
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(Interfax – BAKU, October 17, 2013) Azerbaijan’s Embassy in Moscow has lodged a protest with the Russian Foreign Ministry over what it called violations of the rights of Azeri native Orkhan Zeynalov, who is suspected of killing ethnic Russian man Yegor Shcherbakov in the Biryulyovo district in southern Moscow. “The brutal detention and brutal treatment of Orkhan Zeynalov, whom they […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Claire Bigg and Arifa Kazimova – October 16, 2013) Footage detailing the heavy-handed arrest of an Azerbaijani native suspected of killing a Russian man in Moscow has escalated mounting ethnic tensions between the two nations. Russian police detained Orkhan Zeynalov on October 15 on suspicion of fatally stabbing a 25-year-old ethnic Russian man, Yegor Shcherbakov, in […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, October 18, 2013) A Kremlin source has denied reports claiming that a number of regional governors may be relieved of their posts ahead of time. “These absurd claims are not even worth commenting on. This newspaper article uses some artificially formed agenda, not real facts,” the source told Interfax on Friday. The Izvestia newspaper said, citing its […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, October 17, 2013) The monthly Internet audience in Russia reached 66.1 million people aged 18 or older, or, 57% of the country’s population in fall 2013, Svetlana Borisova, the head of the FOM-RUNET project of the Public Opinion Foundation, told a conference RIW (Russian Internet Week) 2013. “The average daily audience of the Russian segment of the […]
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Johnson’s Russia List :: 2013-#186 :: 17 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. Centre for European Reform: Charles Grant, Is Putin going soft? […]
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Date: Wed, 16 Oct 2013 Subject: Reform of the Kremlin Narrative From: Ray Finch <rayfin3@gmail.com> Reform of the Kremlin Narrative By Ray Finch, Foreign Military Studies Office Although anti-Americanism is not new in Russia, when half the Russian population indicates that they see America in a positive light, the Kremlin-backed media has to work harder to make the glass appear […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Marina Obrazkova, RBTH – October 16, 2013) The conflict that started in the capital has spread to other major cities. In the Russian regions, people have started taking to the streets in support of residents of the Moscow district of Biryulovo, who staged riots in response to the murder of a young man […]
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(RIA Novosti – KIEV, October 16, 2013) More than a half of Ukrainians are against the idea of making Russian the country’s second state language, according to a survey released by an independent Ukrainian pollster on Wednesday. Sociological Group “Rating” said 43 percent of respondents are in favor of the idea, while 51 percent are against. Five percent said […]
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(Interfax – October 17, 2013) The Geneva II international conference on Syria has been rescheduled once again due to the Syrian opposition’s reluctance to reach agreements, Russia’s Kommersant newspaper said on Thursday. The end of November or even December is now being discussed as a possible date for the conference instead of the middle of November previously announced by Russian […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, October 17, 2013) An international peace conference on Syria backed by Russia and the United States will take place on November 23-24, a senior Syrian governmental official said Thursday. The Geneva-2 conference will proceed despite leading Syrian opposition groups’ continuing reluctance to participate, Deputy Prime Minister Qadri Jamil said at a press conference in Moscow. The […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Ben Aris in Moscow – October 17, 2013) Russia’s growth over the first nine months of this year was 0%, Deputy Economic Development Minister Andrei Klepach said on October 15. While the rest of the world is fixated on trying to spur growth, the Kremlin is largely ignoring the problem of its stagnating economy, […]
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(Interfax – October 16, 2013) Anti-Kremlin protesters prosecuted in the so-called “Bolotnaya case” could be freed under the amnesty proposed by the Human Rights Council (HRC) under the Russian president, privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax reported on 16 October. The draft submitted to President Vladimir Putin specifically mentions people who “took part or were convicted for taking part in public […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, October 16, 2013) Some 43% of Russian citizens support the initiative to reinstate the “against all” opinion on ballots, the Russian Public Opinion Studies Center (VTsIOM) told Interfax on Wednesday. Twenty-one percent of the respondents disagreed with the idea, and 32% said they simply did not care. VTsIOM polled 1,600 people in 130 towns and cities in […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, October 17, 2013) The Russian Federation finds itself in a Zugswang, a German term for a situation in which any move leads to a loss, according to the editor of “Kulturolog.” And in its case, the situation is especially dire because the country increasingly finds itself forced to choose between disintegration and […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Panin – October 17, 2013) Following a recent eruption of ethnically motivated street violence, Moscow’s migrant-populated food markets and warehouses continue to serve as the front line in an ongoing fight against illegal immigrants declared by mayor Sergei Sobyanin. The now notorious vegetable warehouse in Biryulyovo that became the site of violent riots Sunday […]
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(Interfax – BRUSSELS, October 16, 2013) Relations between Russia and NATO have scaled back on certain tracks, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. “Positive results are hard to win in practice in certain areas, and progress was even reversed on some tracks,” he said at the Royal Institute of International relations (the Egmont Institute) in Brussels. “I mean, for instance, […]
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