(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, September 26, 2013) Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with a US newspaper published Thursday that homemade sarin nerve agent was used in a chemical weapons attack in Damascus on August 21, an attack that the United States maintains was carried out by the Syrian regime. Lavrov gave an interview to The […]
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Johnson’s Russia List :: 2013-#175 :: 25 September 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. RIA Novosti: Most Russians Satisfied With September Polls, Say Results […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, September 25, 2013) Russia cannot be understood as a single whole, according to Natalya Zubarevich, but only as four different Russias whose increasingly different situations are pushing them in four different directions, a pattern that is often obscured by the use of data sets for the country as a whole. In yesterday’s […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Oleg Sukhov – September 25, 2013) A key United Russia lawmaker said Tuesday that he supported granting amnesty to suspects in the high-profile Bolotnoye case, echoing recent comments by President Vladimir Putin. Speculation about a possible amnesty for suspects in the case has grown since Putin said at the Valdai Club meeting last week that […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, September 24, 2013) Over 18,000 applications of those wishing to move back to Russia within the framework of the state program to assist the voluntarily return of Russian natives from abroad were submitted in 2013. “Over 18,000 applications were taken this year. An analysis of the applications shows that the majority of (Russians) are of employable age. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Andrew McChesney – September 25, 2013) People should focus on Vladimir Putin’s work as president and avoid prying into his personal life not that he has one because he is so busy with his Kremlin duties, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Peskov, who made the appeal in a far-ranging interview published Wednesday in Izvestia, […]
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Subject: No. 136: Navalny and the Moscow Mayoral Election Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2013 From: “Russian Analytical Digest (RAD)” <newslist@isn.ch> RUSSIAN ANALYTICAL DIGEST Newsletter 16 September 2013/No. 136 NAVALNY AND THE MOSCOW MAYORAL ELECTION To download this issue please click here: http://www.css.ethz.ch/policy_consultancy/products_INT/DetailansichtPubDB_EN?rec_id=2712 Analyses Navalny’s Campaign to be Moscow Mayor, by Robert W. Orttung, Washington Re-Setting the Game: The Logic and […]
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From: “Alexander Domrin” <adomrin@rumyantsevconsulting.ru> Subject: new issue of Konstitutsionny Vestnik on the the 20th anniversary of the Russian Constitution Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 Dear David I am pleased to tell you and JRL readers that a new Konstitutsionny Vestnik issue of can be downloaded from the web site of the Russian Foundation for Legal Reform: http://www.rfcr.ru/news_upload/kv3.pdf The issue […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Ben Aris in Moscow – September 25, 2013) Russia leapt 10 places in the latest “Economic Freedom of the World” report, released in September by Canada’s Fraser Institute, to 101st place largely thanks to its financial reforms. The US fell 13 spots, largely because of its financial mess. The Kremlin is regularly lambasted for […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – September 25, 2013) Moscow residents may not have gotten the typical “Indian summer” this September, but they were able to get an idea of what life is like in a rainforest, just not the tropical variety. As of Tuesday, about 174 millimeters of rain had fallen on Moscow, which is equivalent to the monthly average […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW. September 24, 2013) Russia’s human rights commissioner Vladimir Lukin said he expected that the Russian authorities would not punish the activists of the Greenpeace environmental organization too severely for their protest rally against oil extraction in the Pechora Sea. “I hope that our authorities will realize that they nevertheless had admirable and noble motives and that they […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, September 25, 2013) The World Bank cut its 2013 growth forecast for the Russian economy in a new report published Wednesday, asserting that domestic consumers had followed investors in “sitting on the fence” over the economy and warning that structural reforms would be necessary to stimulate new growth. Russia’s economy will expand by 1.8 percent […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, September 25, 2013) The growing capital outflow from Russia is putting pressure on the ruble, the Economic Development Ministry said in an economic forecast for 2014-2016 published on Tuesday. “The increase in private capital outflow in 2013 from $30 billion to $70 billion, according to the forecast, was an important factor in the depreciation of the ruble,” […]
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(Interfax – September 25, 2013) The Russian government plans to actively promote production of hydrocarbons and the development of LNG projects, and the country aims to have a 20 percent share of the world liquefied natural gas (LNG) market by 2030, Deputy Energy Minister Kirill Molodtsov said at the Sakhalin Oil and Gas 2013 conference. “The Russian Federation is currently […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Alexander Yakovenko, special to RBTH – September 24, 2013) Alexander Yakovenko, Russian Ambassador to the United Kingdom, talks on Syria. It is widely agreed that the latest proposal to put Syrian chemical weapons under international control and subsequently destroy them has drastically changed the terms of debate on the conflict. The New York […]
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(RIA Novosti – KIEV, September 25, 2013) Diversification of natural gas supplies by Ukraine and Europe made “gas wars” with Russia impossible, the Ukrainian foreign minister said on Tuesday. Russia and Ukraine have long fought over natural gas deliveries, jeopardizing supplies to Europe, a major Russian gas buyer. In the row at the start of 2009, Russia halted all […]
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(Interfax – TBILISI, September 24, 2013) U.S. President Barack Obama gave a positive assessment of the activities of his Georgian counterpart Mikheil Saakashvili, the Georgian president’s administration said. Saakashvili leaves a reformed and democratic society, the administration quoted Obama as saying during a meeting with the Georgian president in New York in a video of the meeting that was posted […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Des Brown – September 25, 2013) “Meet the Russians,” a reality entertainment show produced by Fox TV, will start broadcasting in Britain on Sept. 25. It estimates there are 300,000 Russians now resident in London, and it intends to look at a cross section of the most flamboyant ones. “Prepare to enter a jaw-dropping world […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, September 25, 2013) Nearly half of Russians believe that the recent regional elections were fair and are pleased with the results, the state-run Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) said. About 7,000 elections of various types, in which over 40 million of Russians were entitled to vote, were held across 80 Russian regions on September […]
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(RIA Novosti – NEW YORK, September 25, 2013) Russia insists that all chemical weapons in Syria, including chemical arms components possibly held by Syrian opposition forces, should be destroyed, the Russian foreign minister said. Speaking after a meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry in New York early on Wednesday, Moscow time, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, September 24, 2013) Russian Public Chamber member Sergei Markov said the world community must forge a mechanism for dealing with situations similar to the one in Syria. “One should make use of the energy of this crisis and work out a model of dealing with such conflicts,” Markov told the Open Rostrum roundtable in the State Duma. […]
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Johnson’s Russia List :: 2013-#174 :: 24 September 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. Moscow Times: Alexei Pankin, Yeltsin’s Attack on White House, 20 […]
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(Interfax – KHANTY-MANSIYSK. September 23, 2013) Russia and the U.S. are running into similar problems with the protection of the rights of children left without parental care, Russian presidential children’s rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov said. “The number of adopted children and the number of children living in foster families is about the same in Russia and the United States. For […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Yevgeny Shestakov, special to RBTH; Yevgeny Shestakov is Editor of the international politics desk at Rossiyskaya Gazeta. – September 23, 2013) Reporting from last week’s Valdai Club meeting as part of Foreign Minister Lavrov’s press retinue, Yevgeny Shestakov canvasses expert Russian opinion both on and off the record on the nation’s […]
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(Interfax – VLADIVOSTOK, Russia, September 23, 2013) Syria may still be in danger of a military strike from abroad if it fulfills its commitment to scrap all its chemical weapons because there may be “some other pretext” for war, the Kremlin’s top aide said. Sergei Ivanov, president Vladimir Putin’s chief of staff, said in a program on Saturday on Russia’s […]
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(Interfax – STOCKHOLM, September 23, 2013) Sergei Ivanov, the head of the Russian presidential administration, believes the Arab peoples may not be able to adapt the European model of democracy quickly. “Yes, we support the Arab people’s ambitions for changes, for a better, calmer life. However, we understand very well that they will not be able to adapt the European […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, September 24, 2013) Any arguments presented by the West that it was President Bashar al-Assad’s regime that carried out a chemical attack in the suburbs of Damascus on August 21 can be overturned, which is being done today, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said. “Strong objections can be presented in response to all of the arguments […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, September 24, 2013) The United Nations Security Council may permit armed intervention in Syria only if that government refuses to fulfill obligations, such as removing chemical weapons stockpiles, a senior Russian government official said Tuesday. Washington and Moscow are expected to clash at the UN General Assembly later this week over the terms of a […]
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(RIA Novosti – SOCHI, September 23, 2013) Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday named Russia’s priorities during its presidency in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a military alliance of former Soviet states. The CSTO Council, the organization’s supreme ruling body comprising leaders of the six member states, gathered in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi. Kyrgyzstan handed […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova – September 24, 2013) The victory of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative party in the country’s general elections Sunday is expected to secure the stability of Russian-German relations for the next four years, despite German’s recent criticism of human rights in Russia. Taking 41.5 percent of the vote, Merkel’s conservative bloc consisting of […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – September 24, 2013) EBRD president Suma Chakrabarti acknowledged Tuesday that Russia’s sputtering economy combined with deeply ingrained problems such as corruption and a weak court system were deterring both foreign and domestic investors. But he insisted that the opportunities continued to far outweigh the risks and said the Russian authorities were taking much-needed steps to […]
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(Interfax – September 24, 2013) Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has approved a plan to create and develop mechanisms for public oversight over the activities of natural monopolies with input from consumers, along with the relevant road map, the government press service said. The goal of the document is to involve consumers in monitoring the development and implementation of monopolies’ investment […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, September 23, 2013) Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev criticized the pace at which the road maps to increase business and investment activity in Russia are being implemented, as nearly half of their measures have not been carried out on time. “We can’t in any case be happy with the pace of implementation of these road maps. Of the […]
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(RIA Novosti – Natalia Antonova, Acting Editor-in-Chief of The Moscow News – September 23, 2013) This week, Lenta.ru published a letter from Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, who is serving a two-year sentence in a penal colony for having participated in a “punk prayer” in Russia’s main cathedral back in the winter of 2012. Tolokonnikova is serving her time in a […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, September 24, 2013) If the Federation Council approves the government-backed and Duma-approved plan to restructure the Russian Academy of Sciences, a group of Russian scientists say, this will lead to a weakening or even breakdown of horizontal ties across the country and to “the growth of separatist tendencies.” In an open letter […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – September 24, 2013) Yevgeny Roizman was inaugurated as mayor of Yekaterinburg, just as the contest for city manager, which could well determine the influence Roizman will ultimately wield, began Tuesday. Six candidates have entered the contest, with the winner to be selected by the Yekaterinburg City Duma, RIA Novosti reported. Among them is current city […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Oleg Sukhov – September 24, 2013) The appointment of former “gray cardinal” Vladislav Surkov to a post in President Vladimir Putin’s administration has prompted a flurry of speculation among Kremlin watchers with some saying it signals a return to a more flexible policy in political affairs and others insisting it is just a sinecure for […]
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(Kremlin.ru – Novgorod Region, September 19, 2013) SVETLANA MIRONYUK: Thank you. Mr President, Mr Rühe wants to respond. Mr Rühe, please go ahead. VOLKER RÜHE: President Putin, I go along with you, what you said on Iraq. And we were as critical; the French were, also. It was not a NATO it was an American decision. But Libya was […]
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(RIA Novosti – Maria Young – WASHINGTON, September 23, 2013) If you want to catch a rare glimpse of “the mysterious Russian soul,” you need only to watch a collection of short Russian films being shown at a prominent film festival in Washington this month, said a Russian filmmaker whose work was voted an audience favorite over the weekend. The […]
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(RIA Novosti – Konstantin von Eggert – September 23, 2013) Konstantin Eggert was Diplomatic Correspondent for Izvestia in the 1990s and later the BBC Russian Service Moscow Bureau Editor. Konstantin has also spent some time working as ExxonMobil Vice President in Russia. Conflict is raging in Russia again. Luckily, not on the streets but in the country’s spirited blogosphere. The […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, September 23, 2013) The 2014 budget that is being drafted by Russia’s government is the most austere in years, according to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. “It will be a difficult budget, the most difficult in recent years. It aims to ensure the stable development of Russia in a deteriorating global economic environment,” Medvedev said at a meeting […]
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(Interfax – September 23, 2013) Russian Prime Minister Dmitriy Medvedev has acknowledged that security and the armed forces are a priority for state spending and social needs will have to take their place in the queue, Interfax news agency reported on 23 September. “I hope that after we complete the reorganization and restructuring of the armed forces, on which we’re […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – September 24, 2013) With news of a potential meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama and his newly-elected Iranian counterpart President Hassan Rouhani raising hopes that the stalemate over Iran’s nuclear program might finally come to an end, Russia has handed over control of Iran’s single nuclear power plant to domestic specialists. Russia and Iran signed […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Ben Aris in Moscow – September 24, 2013) The drama in Ukraine is startling to look like a Hollywood B movie storyline. Hero wearing tattered clothes, bloodied and battered, staggers towards the sanctuary of the waiting plane/car/spaceship as the pack of ravenous dogs/savages/aliens pursue him with glitter of revenge in their eyes. Except in […]
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(Interfax – TBILISI, September 23, 2013) Special Envoy of the Georgian Prime Minister for Relations with Russia Zurab Abashidze believes that the format of his negotiations with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin is productive and that their dialogue will continue. “We had our fourth meeting last week and we can say that rather complex problems in the restoration of […]
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Johnson’s Russia List :: 2013-#173 :: 23 September 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. REUTERS SUMMIT – Russia can afford to keep Putin’s social […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Dmitry Litovkin, special to RBTH – September 17, 2013) Petr Veliky, the most powerful ship in the Russian navy, recently crossed the Northern Sea Route for the first time. Although the event was virtually unnoticed amid the escalating military conflict in Syria, pundits believe its implications are also important for international security. The […]
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(Interfax – September 23, 2013) The demands to rescind the law banning U.S. citizens from adopting Russian children are inhumane, bizarre and anti-patriotic, Russian children’s rights commissioner Pavel Astakhov said. “Any normal person should take the speculations and absolutely unlawful demands of certain abhorrent politicians and public activists [in Russia and in the United States] to cancel the ban, to […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ezekiel Pfeifer – September 23, 2013) A Moscow court on Friday rejected a lawsuit brought by opposition politician Alexei Navalny seeking to cancel the results of the city’s Sept. 8 mayoral election, in which Navalny placed second behind Kremlin-backed winner Sergei Sobyanin. Navalny’s team argued that the results were illegitimate because of violations including unequal […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Natalya Krainova – September 23, 2013) An alliance of Russia’s nonparliamentary opposition that was formed at the peak of large-scale street protests in Moscow last year has seen an exodus of its leaders, prompting predictions of its impending political death. Former mayoral candidate Alexei Navalny, Solidarity co-leaders Boris Nemtsov and Ilya Yashin, former State Duma […]
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