Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, April 11, 2103) A majority of Russians do not want Vladimir Putin to run for president again in 2018 when his third term ends, according to a new survey. A total of 55 percent of Russians want a completely new leader, while 22 percent said they would like Putin to be reelected to the post […]
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(opendemocracy.net – April 8, 2013 – Pavel Usanov) Pavel Usanov is head of the Hayek Institute for Economy and Law in St. Petersburg and Reader at the Higher School of Economics. Cyprus’s monetary crisis has drawn international attention to the island’s role as a tax haven and money laundry for Russia’s rich. Meanwhile, Putin has announced a crackdown at home […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, April 9, 2013 – http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/04/window-on-eurasia-putins-commitment-to.html) A report by the Inter-Regional Association of Young Political Scientists notes that Vladimir Putin has changed his language to reflect is “commitment to stability above everything else,” a conclusion that one Moscow commentator suggests fails to capture just how dangerous Putin’s position is for Russia as a […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, April 10, 2013) The punishment for those found guilty of corruption should be as severe as for treason, Kirill Kabanov, head of Russia’s National Anti-Corruption Committee independent watchdog said on Wednesday. “We believe the penalty for corrupt activities should be equal to that in place for treason,” said Kabanov, who is also director of the […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, April 9, 2013) Mortality rates in Moscow have declined by practically every parameter thanks to the modernization of city healthcare in 2011-2012, city health department head Georgy Golukhov said at a city government meeting on Tuesday. “The death rate from external causes decreased by 25% in the reporting period; the death rate from respiratory disorders went down […]
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(Kremlin.ru – April 8, 2013 – Amsterdam) QUESTION: If you don’t mind, I will depart somewhat from the issues of the Russian-Dutch relations. Today, as you must know, we have received the sad news of Margaret Thatcher’s death. Can you tell us your opinion of the former Prime Minister’s contribution to building modern Europe and strengthening European security? VLADIMIR PUTIN: […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – April 10, 2013) Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev will face withering criticism and calls to fire at least one minister when he delivers his first address on the work of his Cabinet to the State Duma next week. Medvedev is scheduled to speak in the Duma on April 17, and he also will meet with the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Winning – April 10, 2013) The State Duma on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed in a first reading a contentious bill that would radically toughen penalties for those who offend believers’ feelings or desecrate relics and places of worship. Supporters of the legislation say it aims to safeguard traditional Russian values, which they say are under […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, April 9, 2013) The draft law that introduces criminal penalties for hurting the feelings of the believers and desecrating holy places is an anti-Church document, which will cause an outbreak of militant atheism, the Russian Communist Party parliamentary group believes. “This criminal penalty will not add to the Church’s authority. This is an anti-Church law,” Communist Party […]
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(RFE/RL – Brian Whitmore – rferl.org – April 9, 2013) The Zhukovsky Peoples’ Council this week set up task forces to address a series of issues, including the environment, housing, urban renewal, transportation, and youth affairs. It all seems pretty banal at first glance, except for one small detail. The 15-member council was chosen in a free and fair vote […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – April 8, 2013 – Anna Arutunyan) Anna Arutunyan is an editor and correspondent at themoscownews.com Coming back from a monthlong break, I’ve seen a flurry of activity. There’s an anti-corruption drive that’s either meant to curb capital flight or get a better grip on State Duma deputies, the court date for Alexei Navalny’s embezzlement trial […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, April 9, 2013 – http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2013/04/window-on-eurasia-kind-of-russian.html) There are many kinds of Russian nationalism on offer today, a Russian Communist Party commentator says, but a major divide now lies between the kinds of Russian nationalism that President Vladimir Putin wants to promote and use and other kinds of Russian nationalism that he views as […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Olga Tanas & Scott Rose – April 10, 2013) Elvira Nabiullina is declining to follow in the footsteps of Mark Carney and Haruhiko Kuroda and become an agent of change at Russia’s central bank. Nabiullina, backed by lawmakers to become the first woman to head a Group of Eight monetary authority in June, pledged continuity yesterday […]
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(Interfax – AMSTERDAM, April 8, 2013) Russian authorities will continue to make effort to improve investment climate in the country. “We will do our best to create favorable business environment,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a meeting with Russian and Dutch businessmen in Amsterdam on Monday. “We are doing our best to improve business climate in Russia. Probably, there […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW. April 6, 2013) Authors of a research on the level of anti-Semitism in Russia in 2011-2012 concluded that animosity toward Jewish people in the country is fairly uncommon, although they mentioned worrying manifestations of it among some nationalists, Muslims and government officials. “The level of crimes motivated by anti-Semitism continued to be relatively low in 2011-2012. Five […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – April 9, 2013) NGO representatives on Monday questioned the validity of President Vladimir Putin’s comment to German television that NGOs in Russia had received about $1 billion from abroad since the “foreign agent” law was adopted in 2012. In the interview broadcast Friday, Putin said there were 654 active NGOs in Russia […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW. April 9, 2013) Income declarations of Russian President Vladimir Putin and officials of his administration will be released in mid April in line with previous plans. “Formally (in accordance with the president’s decrees from April 2) we don’t have to do it in April. But income declarations have already been submitted to the administration and nothing prevents […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Marina Maximova, special to RBTH – April 8, 2013) Many do not follow in their parents’ footsteps, setting up their own businesses instead. The children of Russia’s billionaires do not all choose to take up their parents’ wealth and business empires. In fact, many have started to make names for themselves with separate […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Oleg Sukhov – April 8, 2013) “Do you dare come to the square where the regiments are waiting … between the Senate and Synod?” These lines, though written by Russian poet Alexander Galich in 1968 about the Decembrist revolt of 1825 on St. Petersburg’s Senatskaya Ploshchad, express the spirit of the art inspired by Russia’s […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW. April 8, 2013) Lyudmila Alekseyeva, the elder human rights activist in Russia and the head of the Moscow Helsinki group, believes the figures given in reports on foreign funding received by NGOs in Russia are overestimated. “This is being done to show that these organizations allegedly have money to burn. Everyone influences public opinion in the way […]
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(RIA Novosti, HANOVER, April 8, 2013) The recent wave of inspections of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Russia is not aimed at restricting their activity but rather at controlling their foreign funding, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “All our actions are not designed to shut down or ban [the operation of NGOs in […]
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(Interfax – April 5, 2013) Russians have shown a more positive attitude towards the work of the country’s ministers for the last few months, a survey by the pro-Kremlin All-Russia Public Opinion Research Centre (VTsIOM) has found, the Interfax news agency reported on 5 April. The poll is available on the VTsIOM website, at http://wciom.ru/index.php?id=459&uid=113822 Respondents were asked to assess […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW. April 4, 2013) All Russian government officials should be obligated to invest their money in the securities of Russian issuers, deputy Central Bank chairman Sergei Shvetsov said. “Today a large number of officials disclose their assets, and we see vehicles, dachas and land there, we very rarely see mutual funds, Russian securities. The presence of securities in […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW. April 4, 2013) Russian federal state property agency Rosimushchestvo will publish the privatization plan for 2014-2016 in May, the head of the agency, Deputy Economic Development Minister Olga Dergunova, said at the Russian Exchange Forum in Moscow on Thursday. “We are currently at the stage of forming the 2014-2016 privatization plan. The information will be published on […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Sergei Markedonov, special to RBTH – April 5, 2013) Sergei Markedonov is a visiting fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C. The country’s authorities should undertake drastic reform of the nationalities policy. “The nationalities issue” remains a priority for Russia’s social and political development. In the 1990s-early 2000s, the […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 10, Issue 63 – Pavel Felgenhauer – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – April 4, 2013) The Russian government, the expert community in Moscow and the national economic elite are actively discussing the economic future of the nation and possible drastic financial policy changes as the economy slumps into potentially long-term stagflation, which may fundamentally destabilize the […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Anna Arutunyan – April 5, 2013) Oppositionist blogger Alexei Navalny has revealed he wants to be president, with a trial less than two weeks away that could jail him for up to 10 years on embezzlement charges. “I want to become president,” Navalny said in an interview with the independent Dozhd TV late Thursday evening. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – April 5, 2013) A leak of details about offshore bank accounts belonging to Russian businesspeople and the wife of First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov threatens to embarrass President Vladimir Putin, who has vowed to crack down on the use of tax havens. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a network of 160 journalists around […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW. April 4, 2013) Alexei Kudrin, chairman of the Civil Initiatives Committee and former finance minister, said that he sometimes meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “There are meetings with the president. But I’m not ready to discuss their contents,” Kudrin told reporters on Thursday. Kudrin said that he shared his position at such meetings. “I express my […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, April 4, 2013) For the first time in Russian history, the current situation in the country is such that it requires concluding a public agreement that entails a diffusion of power, an analytical report prepared by the Centre of Political Technologies foundation, commissioned by the Civic Initiatives Committee (CIC), has found. “A ‘super-presidential’ republic should be replaced […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Olga Doronina, special to RBTH – April 5, 2013) Opinion polls show that a majority of Russians are increasingly intolerant of the wealth of government officials riches which they see as connected to the embezzlement of public funds. Russians are increasingly intolerant of wealth among state officials and parliamentarians. Ordinary people not […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – April 5, 2013) The official Russian set of technical standards, GOST, has finally solved one of Russia’s two biggest problems: bad roads. In 2011, the Rosstandart national standardization body redefined the definition of a pothole as having a width of at least 1.5 meters and a depth of 7 centimeters. At the time, Rosstandart defended its […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – April 5, 2013) The middleclass in Russia grew by about 1 percentage point annually from 2004 to 2011 and now makes up about 18.9% of society, while the share of government officials and silovikis, a Russian term referring to political entities in the military or security spheres, usually former officers of the KGB and […]
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(Kremlin.ru – April 5, 2013) Ahead of the working visit to Germany, Vladimir Putin gave an interview to the German ARD. The interview was recorded on April 2, 2013 in Novo-Ogaryovo. * * * JÖRG SCHÖNENBORN (retranslated): Good evening, Mr President, Germany and Russia enjoy special relationship and, economically speaking, they are a good match. However, there exist certain difficulties […]
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MOSCOW, April 5 (RIA Novosti) President Vladimir Putin insisted on Friday that the Kremlin was committed to the goal of democratic development, but said Russia needs more time to overcome the legacy of almost 70 years of Soviet rule. “It is obvious that we have made a decisive choice for democracy and we cannot imagine any other path of […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, April 4, 2013) Opposition activist and blogger Aleksey Navalnyy is becoming increasingly known among the Russians, however his rating among the electorate is going down and less countrymen believe him, a sociologist survey has shown. In April 2011, Navalnyy was practically unknown to his countrymen – 94 per cent of people confirmed this to sociologists, whereas in […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Winning – April 4, 2013) A Kirov court on Wednesday set a date to begin hearing a criminal case against opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who describes as “absurd” the charge that he embezzled $515,000 from a state timber company several years ago. Navalny’s lawyers had asked Kirov’s Leninsky District Court to arrange preliminary hearings […]
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(Institute of Modern Russia – imrussia.org – Donald N. Jensen – April 2, 2013) KGB General Sergei Ivanov, once considered a likely successor to Vladimir Putin, lost much of his influence after Dmitri Medvedev’s selection as president in 2008. Yet in recent weeks, Ivanov appears to have made a political comeback. Donald N. Jensen, Resident Fellow at the Center for […]
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(Interfax – HELSINKI. April 3, 2013) Russia is determined to build “a full-scale democratic society,” said State Duma Chairman Sergei Naryshkin. “Undoubtedly, building a democratic society is a very complex, very large-scale social and political project in any country, and there are hardly any naive people in this audience who believe that such a project can be carried out at […]
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(Interfax – April 3, 2013) Russians display a growing interest in politics. Half of them say there is more freedom and openness now, and the other half disagrees, the Russian Public Opinion Study Center (VTsIOM) told Interfax on Wednesday. Some 63 percent declared lack of interest in politics last year. The indicator is down to 54 percent now, the center […]
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(Kennan Institute – Mattison Brady – March 11, 2013 – www.wilsoncenter.org/program/kennan-institute) Meeting summary “The question I wish to ask here today is, ‘is Vladimir Putin’s system of rule in crisis?’” opened Marie Mendras, Professor at Sciences Po University and Research Fellow with the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, at a March 11, 2013 lecture at the Kennan Institute. […]
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(Interfax – Gorki, April 3, 2013) Russian Prime Minister Dmitriy Medvedev has said the social obligations taken by the state are unconditional and set the task of optimizing spending in this area. “A very considerable sum is provided for these purposes (in the social sphere) in the federal budget this year: over R5,000bn (about 160bn dollars at the current rate […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, April 4, 2013) The Russian authorities are dodging vital but unpopular measures and structural reforms necessary to spur Russia’s faltering economic growth, former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said on Thursday. “The government is making use of measures other than those necessary while being afraid of real measures because they are not always popular,” said Kudrin, […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, April 3, 2013) The Russian government will not influence the Central Bank’s independence in decision-making in order to accelerate economic growth, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said at a conference entitled ‘Economic and Social Modernization’ at the Higher School of Economics on Wednesday. “The key principles behind the Central Bank’s work will continue and, eventually, they […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, April 3, 2013) Former Economics Minister Elvira Nabiullina, nominated by President Vladimir Putin to head the country’s Central Bank, said on Wednesday Russia needed to rethink its model for growth amid the current global economic uncertainty and mounting problems in the eurozone. “We need to change our economic growth model and get focused on internal […]
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YAKUTSK. April 2 (Interfax) – Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said the arrival of an effective owner is a must when state companies are being privatized; the government, however, cannot force any decisions on businesses. “No one can force any decisions on anyone. We want our businesses to be socially responsible, but we cannot institute this by passing decrees,” Medvedev told […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Tom Rowley – March 29, 2013) Tom Rowley is a PhD student at the University of Cambridge. His work investigates how dissidents are remembered in Russia from perestroika to the present day. THE CEELBAS DEBATE // How far does the current clash between the opposition and authorities reflect Russia’s history of dissidence? Tom Rowley considers the importance of […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, April 2, 2013) Russian Human Rights Commissioner Vladimir Lukin has called for granting parole to the women from the Pussy Riot female punk band, who were earlier sentenced to two years in prison each for their stunt at the Christ the Savior Cathedral. “We expressed our disagreement with the court ruling convicting these two ladies, because we […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, April 2, 2013) Russian Human Rights Commissioner Vladimir Lukin has called on non-governmental organizations (NGO) to assess their ongoing inspections by law enforcement and tax agencies. “We have asked human rights organizations that have been subjected to inspections to send us documents and tell us how the inspections were conducted, how the law was abided by, and […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – April 3, 2013 – Jonathan Earle) President Vladimir Putin has expanded declaration requirements for more than 1.3 million state employees and given the Kremlin the power to demand and check disclosures, significant steps toward carrying out the government’s stalled anti-corruption plan. While the government hailed the moves, laid out in two decrees signed by Putin […]
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