Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
(Government.ru – August 6, 2013) Dmitry Medvedev’s interview with Nino Shubladze, host of the political talk show Position, broadcast by Georgia’s Rustavi 2 TV network on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the war in South Ossetia. Nino Shubladze: Thank you very much, Mr Prime Minister, for granting us an interview. There are, of course, very many important topics […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Mikhail Loginov – August 5, 2013) Mikhail Loginov is a journalist and novelist based in St Petersburg. He is the author of the recently published bestselling political thriller “Battle for Kremlin”. As the saying goes: ‘Russia has two misfortunes: the fools and the roads.’ Aleksei Navalny is just about still standing for election as Mayor of Moscow, but, […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Natalia Antonova, Acting Editor-in-Chief – August 6, 2013) It was a bit of throwaway news last week: A young man behind the wheel of a Ferrari had struck and killed a pensioner in Moscow in early July. The young man in question, rumored to be the son of a well-known businessman, was let go under […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Dan Wisniewski – August 6, 2013) Moscow’s efforts to develop its eastern regions over the last couple of centuries could be encapsulated in the rallying cry “Go east, young Russians!” But perhaps nowadays that might be rephrased as “Go east, young Uzbeks,” according to EurasiaNet’s Evgeny Kuzmin. Kuzmin notes that more and more Central Asian migrants […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Natalya Krainova – August 5, 2013) The performance of popular U.S. rock band Bloodhound Gang was canceled over the weekend after one of its musicians shoved a Russian flag into his underpants at a concert in Ukraine, prompting outrage from Russian officials and calls for an investigation into the possibility that the flag fiasco was […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Anna Arutunyan – August 5, 2013) Every few years, the specter of Russian nationalism rears its head, sending people who think they understand a thing or two about this country screaming in horror in all directions. The reason, I think, is that in Western democracies, “nationalism” is understood as a chauvinistic sense of supremacy that […]
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(Interfax – August 5, 2013) Russians are not enthusiastic about new parties and the only interest they take is that in the very fact of their appearance, Public Opinion Foundation General Director Alexander Oslon concluded from their sociological studies. “People do not expect any concrete results from the appearance of large number of political parties. I would say they are […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, August 4, 2013) Russian President Vladimir Putin’s love of sport means that, from a medical point of view, he is “much younger than his age,” the Kremlin’s chief doctor, Sergei Mironov, said in an interview to be published Monday. “He is a very sporty person. Not everyone at such a mature age starts to play […]
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(Interfax – SELIGER, Tver region, August 2, 2013) The attempts to plunge Russia into chaos will lead to the situation as in some Middle Eastern countries and Russia does not need new priests Gapons (Georgy Gapon was a Russian priest and a popular working class leader before the Russian Revolution of 1905), Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the Seliger […]
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(Kremlin.ru – August 2, 2013) Vladimir Putin visited the Seliger 2013 National Youth Education Forum, taking place in Tver Region on July 14-August 5. The President met with the Seliger-2013 forum participants and examined the best youth projects and public initiatives. This was Vladimir Putin’s fourth visit to Seliger. He previously visited the forum in 2009, 2011, and 2012. Seliger […]
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(Interfax – August 3, 2013) The Russian movement for the protection of the rights of voters, Golos, has opened a website with a map [http://www.kartanarusheniy.org/] which will record all violations at local elections on 8 September, Interfax news agency reported on 2 August, quoting the movement’s press service. The press service said that people would be able to add information […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, August 5, 2013) Four environmental activists in southern Russia have been given lengthy jail terms for extorting money from a real estate developer, though they denied the accusations, Russian media reported. Four employees of the Gelendzhik Human Rights Center in the Krasnodar Region were given jail terms of between eight and 13 years in a […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Ilya Arkhipov & Olga Tanas – August 2, 2013) Russian President Vladimir Putin is showing his gamesmanship on a global stage by giving his voters what they want with the asylum granted to ex-U.S. contractor Edward Snowden, while leaving the White House flustered. The decision is backed by almost twice as many Russians as those against […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Michael Bohm, Opinion Page Editor – August 2, 2013) Russians have had trouble shaking off one stereotype for centuries: razgildyaistvo, or negligence and carelessness. Razgildyaistvo, some say, is as Russian as long, cold winters a Russian institution of its own making. How accurate is this stereotype? Prominent historian and journalist Leonid Mlechin perhaps put […]
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(Interfax – SELIGER, Tver region, August 2, 2013) Russian President Vladimir Putin said he did not intend to end his political career for now but, in any case, when the moment came, he would continue doing public work. “I hope it is not finished yet,” Putin said at the youth camp Seliger when asked what he would do after ending […]
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(Interfax – SELIGER, Tver region, Aug 2, 2013) The main problems in Russia are corruption, low incomes of citizens and insufficient infrastructure development, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. “The first issue and first problem is the fight against corruption, which is eating our society and state system. The second issue – and all this is interrelated – is low incomes […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, August 2, 2013) Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that a recent real jail term for his vehement opponent Alexei Navalny was “strange,” given that another defendant in the case got away with a suspended sentence. Whistleblowing blogger Navalny was given five years in jail last month on embezzlement charges that he dismissed as fabricated by […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, August 2. 2013) The Russian government appeared to renew its support for the Skolkovo innovation hub Thursday as Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev told the Cabinet that the embattled project would be included in a state program and receive 502 billion rubles ($15.2 billion) of funding through 2020. The brainchild of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova – August 1, 2013) Investigators said Wednesday that they were preparing a new criminal case against former Yaroslavl Mayor Yevgeny Urlashov, who was arrested on attempted bribery charges in early July in what his supporters say was a frame-up to ruin his party’s chances of winning regional elections. Urlashov became a nationally known […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Kirill Koroteev – Aug. 1, 2013) Kirill Koroteev, a Russian lawyer, has worked with Memorial Human Rights Centre (Moscow) and European Human Rights Advocacy Centre on numerous cases lodged against the Russian Federation with the European Court of Human Rights. He was also a charge de mission for the International Federation for Human Rights (Paris) on Belarus and […]
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(Institute of Modern Russia – imrussia.org – Vladimir Kara-Murza – August 1, 2013) On September 8, Moscow will hold its mayoral election. Six candidates are vying for the post, but only two can be considered serious contenders: the incumbent, Sergei Sobyanin, and anticorruption campaigner Alexei Navalny. As in previous years, a part of the opposition is calling for a boycott […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 31, 2013) The majority of Moscow citizens are aware that that early Moscow mayoral elections will be held on September 8 and they are interested in the election campaign, however not all of them intend to vote on the single election day, sociologists said. The share of Moscow citizens aware of the upcoming mayoral elections in […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Yuri Dzhibladze – July 30, 2013) Yuri Dzhibladze is founder and president of the Centre for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights, a Russian public policy and advocacy NGO. The Centre for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights has achieved much in fifteen years, but now, like so many NGOs, it has been branded a ‘foreign […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 30, 2013) The share of Moscow residents happy with the work of the Moscow mayor, its government and Moscow City Duma grew, however the majority still think that authorities ignore wishes of Moscow residents when making decisions, sociologists said. The share of Moscow residents happy with the work of acting Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin grew from […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova – July 31, 2013) Moscow’s election committee announced Tuesday that debates for the Sept. 8 mayoral election will be held with the participation of all six candidates simultaneously an arrangement many say is a result of acting Mayor Sergei Sobyanin’s reluctance to go head to head with opposition leader Alexei Navalny. While […]
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(Interfax – July 31, 2013) Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev intends to order the ministries and the Moscow government to draw up a document reducing the degree of secrecy of geographical data for the publication of digital maps on the Internet. “As regards the maps, the draft orders I will sign after our meeting expressly orders various agencies – the […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Tom Balmforth – MOSCOW – July 29, 2013) Western lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) activists are ratcheting up the pressure on Russia over laws outlawing “gay propaganda.” Among the tactics: an online campaign to “dump Russian vodka” calls for a boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, while another campaign urges a visa ban […]
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(RIA Novosti – July 29, 2013) Yabloko leader Sergey Mitrokhin, chairman of Just Russia Nikolay Levichev and the candidate from RPR-Parnas, Aleksey Navalnyy, will not withdraw their candidatures from the September election of Moscow mayor, RIA Novosti (1) reported on 29 July. A coordinator of the Left Front, Sergey Udaltsov, earlier called on Levichev, Navalnyy, Mitrokhin and Ivan Melnkiov (CPRF […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Anna Arutunyana – July 30, 2013) When asked to rate President Vladimir Putin’s work as good or bad, over 60 percent of Muscovites gave a positive answer, a recent poll says. When asked who they would vote for in a hypothetical presidential election this week, 54 percent of Muscovites said they would vote for Putin, […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 10, Issue 139 – Pavel K. Baev – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – July 29, 2013) Last week, Aleksei Navalny re-entered the Moscow mayoral election campaign after his implausible release from jail the day after being condemned to five years behind bars on a blatantly fabricated charge. His team has jump-started the work in earnest, mobilizing […]
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(Institute of Modern Russia – imrussia.org – Ekaterina Mishina – July 29, 2013) Russia’s leading legal experts have published an open address in which they detail the threats to the country’s constitutional order. IMR Advisor Ekaterina Mishina, a co-signatory of the address, emphasizes that, for the lawyers, to point out the dangers of the current situation is a professional, civic, […]
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(Moscow News – Anna Arutunyan, Editor and Correspondent at themoscownews.com – July 29, 2013) It’s late July, and that can only mean one thing: Potemkin Tales takes on its favorite subject – primordial myth. When it’s warm outside, the Russian president never fails to give fodder for armchair anthropology. The idea that is central both to politics and the Potemkin […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – July 30, 2013) In the shadow of a much more publicized mayoral election in the capital, the upcoming gubernatorial election in the Moscow region offers a decidedly different set of campaign issues, people’s demands and opposition activity. Unlike in Moscow, residents of the region that is often separated from the city by […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, July 30, 2013) The number of Russians discussing politics when they meet with friends has dropped nearly by half over the past 21 years, an opinion survey by the Levada Center pollster has shown. According to the survey published Monday, 16 percent of Russian nationals talk about politics at such meetings. The figure was 28 percent […]
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(Interfax – July 30, 2013) The verdict to be handed down on Tuesday to Bradley Manning, a soldier accused of the biggest leak of classified information in U.S. history, will show what could have happened to former CIA employee Edward Snowden if he had returned to the United States, Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the Russian State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee, […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Michael Bohm, Opinion Page Editor – July 26, 2013) All autocracies have two things in common: They exaggerate the threats they face from leading opposition figures and take extreme, repressive measures to limit or remove those threats. Russia is certainly no exception, and the trial and conviction of opposition leader Alexei Navalny is a case […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Natalya Krainova – July 29, 2013) State television on Friday showed President Vladimir Putin catching a 21-kilogram pike in a Siberian lake and kissing it, in what analysts say was a publicity stunt meant to portray Putin as a strong leader capable of re-election in 2018 and bloggers say was pure fiction. The footage, said […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, July 26, 2013) Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia has thanked Russian leaders represented by President Vladimir Putin for their respectful attitude towards the Russian Orthodox Church. “We have been developing church-state relations since 2000. This model was not handed down from the above and its outlines – mutual respect, non-interference in each other’s affairs and, […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 27, 2013) Vladislav Surkov who stepped down from the vice-premier’s position in May said his attitude to President Vladimir Putin and the Russian opposition did not change after he quit politics. “My resignation changed nothing in the divine dimension. There is no reason to think differently,” Surkov said in an interview with the magazine Russkiy Pioner. […]
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(Moscow TImes – themoscowtimes.com – Natalya Krainova – July 26, 2013) The upcoming Sept. 8 regional elections across Russia will be more competitive than the previous ones, amid declining public support for the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, experts say. Despite compounded bureaucratic obstacles for the registration of candidates, ongoing regional election campaigns show an increased outflow of candidates from the […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 28, 2013) Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has refuted rumors that the photo showing President Vladimir Putin pulling out a pike had been made before 2013. Runet users circulate rumors “for the lack of anything better to do in the summer time,” Peskov said in an interview with the Russian News Service on Sunday, commenting on reports […]
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(RIA Novosti – July 27, 2013) Vladislav Surkov, who left his posts as deputy prime minister and government chief of staff in early May, has no regrets and was not sacked but resigned, he has said in an interview. “I went of my own volition. That’s what it said in the presidential decree and that’s how it was,” he told […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Robert Coalson – July 28, 2013) Aleksei Navalny has been called the best hope for liberalization in Russia. And he has been called the most dangerous man in the country. Navalny has risen quickly to become the de facto head of Russia’s anti-Kremlin opposition — a rise based almost entirely on his relentless exposure of high-level […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, July 25, 2013) Competition in the Russian economy is still weak, which is hindering the development of small and medium-sized businesses in the country, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Thursday. “Our anti-monopoly legislation is quite strict, while competition is still weak,” Medvedev told a government meeting. The prime minister said problems remain on raw material […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – July 25, 2013) A liturgy at Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow on Wednesday will open a series of commemorative events to mark the 1025th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus celebrated jointly this year in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian Orthodox leader Patriarch Kirill will hold the service assisted by the Primates of other […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 10, Issue 136 – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – Richard Arnold – July 24, 2013) The announcement by Vladimir Tor, the leader of the unregistered far-right National Democratic Party (NDP), that he will support anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny in the election for Moscow mayor (http://lenta.ru/news/2013/06/20/navalny/) may have gone unnoticed in the West, but it is one […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Joy Neumeyer – July 22, 2013) On July 19, Moscow marked the 120th anniversary of Vladimir Mayakovsky, the rebellious Futurist poet who rose from a childhood in Georgia to become the voice of the October Revolution. The commemorations came on the eve of the controversial renovation of Moscow’s Mayakovsky Museum, which some fear will remove […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 23, 2013) Acting Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin running for reelection has reaffirmed his intention to do all he can to ensure that the mayoral elections scheduled for September 8 be truly honest. “We don’t need a victory at all costs. We need honest elections, I mean really honest elections,” Sobyanin said at a meeting with members […]
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(Interfax – July 23, 2013) According to an opinion poll carried out in Moscow on 20-21 July, only 9 per cent of those polled would vote for opposition leader Aleksey Navalnyy in the Moscow mayor election to be held on 8 September, privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax reported on 23 July.(1) The figure has gone up 1 per cent since […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 23, 2013) A website, vybory.mos.ru, will go online soon to allow Muscovites to monitor the mayoral elections, Moscow’s IT Department head Artyom Yermolayev told the city government on Tuesday. “A technical scheme has been devised that will link up the video cameras intended for the police and housing utility services into an integrated video monitoring system, […]
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