With a new law limiting foreign ownership of media in Russia to 20 percent due to come into force on Jan. 1, 2016, many international companies are already leaving the market due to loss of revenue (Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Maria Karnaukh, special to RBTH – October 13, 2015) With less than half a year left until […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Daria Litvinova – October 13, 2015) Russian media will be obliged to report funding they receive from abroad to the media watchdog Roskomnadzor, if an inter-party group of deputies get their way. A bill to that effect was introduced to the State Duma, the lower chamber of the country’s parliament, last week by deputies from […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Oleg Krasnov, RBTH – October 12, 2015) Anyone on the planet who speaks Russian will be able to read a chapter from Russian writer Lev Tolstoy’s classic War and Peace directly online as part of an upcoming event The “War and Peace: Let’s Read The Novel” event will take place between Dec. 8 […]
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(CBS News – September 27, 2015) Charlie Rose interviews Russian President Vladimir Putin for 60 Minutes on CBS. Click here for CBS News transcript – “All eyes on Putin: At a time of icy relations with the U.S., Russian President Vladimir Putin gives a rare — and surprising — interview to 60 Minutes.” Embedded video below. View More: Newsmakers News|60 […]
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The Kyiv Post critiques Vladimir Putin’s recent interview by Charlie Rose for CBS News’ 60 Minutes. Russian President Vladimir Putin is wasting hundreds of millions of dollars a year with his vast worldwide propaganda networks such as Russia Today. All he needs to do is find more unprepared, ill-informed and poor interviewers such as Charlie Rose of the American “60 […]
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(RFE/RL – Roman Super, Robert Coalson – MOSCOW – September 20, 2015) If Russian journalism has a patron saint, his name is Yasen Zasursky. The ailing 85-year-old headed the Moscow State University (MGU) journalism department for more than 40 years before becoming its president emeritus in 2007. The roster of respected journalists who received their diplomas from him is astounding: […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – September 17, 2015) Russians are becoming less interested in what is happening in neighboring Ukraine amid reports of decreased military activity in the country, state-run pollster VTsIOM reported in a survey published Wednesday. According to the poll, 71 percent of Russians are currently following events in Ukraine, including 25 percent of respondents who say they […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Jordan Reed – September 15, 2015) The Russian Internet giant Yandex put its literary research hat on to conduct a far-reaching survey into the habits of Russians who search for poets and their works online. After analyzing the 37 million Yandex searches related to poetry over the period of one year, April 2014 to March […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Marina Denysenko – September 11, 2015) Marina Denysenko is a journalist with experience reporting in Ukraine and the UK. In 2004, she reported Ukraine’s Orange Revolution for the BBC World Service. In 2014, she directed London’s Ukrainian Investment Summit, and is currently researching Ukraine’s institutional response to the challenges of the information war for the Legatum Institute. ‘The […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Daria Litvinova – September 3, 2015) In a streak of measures designed to impose stricter control over the Internet in Russia, the law that requires all Internet services store the personal data of Russian users on Russian territory – in effect from Tuesday – will be the most difficult to implement due to its vagueness […]
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[DJ: Nataliya Vasilyeva (AP Moscow correspondent) tweets: 2 day of Western officials retweeting a Forbes report quoting a Ukrainian web-site quoting a non-existent Russia news web-site re Ukraine. The main problem here is, of course, where was the Forbes online editor when the story was published, why nobody bothered to check sources? The ease of spreading rumors in the digital […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – August 26, 2015) After blocking a Wikipedia article for less than than 18 hours, the Russian media watchdog Roskomnadzor removed it from a list of banned webpages on Tuesday in a move that reflects the power the Russian state wields over the Internet, pundits told The Moscow Times. At the end of […]
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According to a joint report by American researchers and Russian sociologists, 49 percent of Russians are not opposed to Internet censorship. They do not perceive attempts to control the Internet as an infringement on the freedom of speech, experts explain. (Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Yekaterina Sinelschikova, RBTH – August 22, 2015) Nearly half of Russians (49 percent) […]
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Roskomnadzor has removed a ban on a Wikipedia article about the drug charas. The online encyclopedia complied with the media watchdog’s demands after Russian telecom providers were told to block access to the material. (Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Yekaterina Sinelschikova, RBTH – August 25, 2015) A Wikipedia article about the narcotic substance charas that violated Russian laws […]
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Writing in The Moscow Times, Peter Pomerantsev addresses the heft of the Kremlin media machine and the U.S. response. The West is finally coming to a belated comprehension of the power of the Kremlin media machine. The Soviet Union is no more, but the Kremlin holds a media hegemony over 142 million citizens of Russia and 93 million residents of […]
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(opendemocracy.net – EDITORS OF OPENDEMOCRACY RUSSIA) This Wednesday, the Russian press focuses on the departure of Vladimir Yakunin, head of Russian Railways and a close ally of Vladimir Putin. According to business daily Kommersant, Yakunin called his decision to leave ‘a personal one’ during a conversation with Vladimir Putin. Meanwhile, Kaliningrad’s election commission is processing Yakunin’s candidacy to become the […]
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Subject: Response to Gordon Hahn’s post [JRL#159] Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2015 12:07:07 -0400 From: Steve Shabad <steve.shabad@verizon.net> I find Gordon Hahn’s criticism of the WaPo report on the Pew poll about Russia and Vladimir Putin, while technically correct on some points, erroneous in its thrust and misguided. He makes a series of highly objectionable points, and misses the forest […]
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(opendemocracy.net – EDITORS OF OPENDEMOCRACY RUSSIA) This Monday, the Russian press reports on the import ban on foreign medicines, Rosneft’s taxes, and an attack by Orthodox activists on a Moscow sculpture exhibition. Kommersant opens with an article on new plans to ban imports of a range of medical products. Several large NGOs, including Vera and Podari zhizn, involved in medical […]
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(opendemocracy.net – EDITORS OF OPENDEMOCRACY RUSSIA) This Wednesday, the Russian press reports on import substitution, copyright news and the emergence of a new, Cossack currency in St Petersburg. This morning, business daily Kommersant leads with an article on import substitution-a commission devoted to the issue has just been set up, with Dmitry Medvedev its head. The commission’s first meeting took […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Brian Whitmore – August 10, 2015) Are little green men about to appear on the North Pole? Russia’s claim last week, using an extremely creative interpretation of international law, to exclusive economic rights to nearly half a million square miles of the Arctic Sea, was certainly a head scratcher. Sure the territory is valuable due to […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Howard Amos – August 10, 2015) Prominent Western experts and journalists accused a Russian publishing house Sunday of pirating their work and printing books using their names without their permission or prior knowledge. Journalists Luke Harding and Edward Lucas and U.S.-based Russia expert Donald Jensen confirmed to The Moscow Times that they did not know […]
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Subject: New journal: Russian Politics Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2015 From: Richard Sakwa <R.Sakwa@kent.ac.uk> I am on the Editorial Board of the new journal Russian Politics, which promises to be an important new venue for research devoted exclusively to Russia, covering politics, history, economy, international affairs and social matters. I would be most grateful if you could post the information […]
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Subject: re Antony Beevor’s book re WWII Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2015 15:51:31 +0100 From: Antony Penaud <antonypenaud@yahoo.fr> Antony Penaud completed his D.Phil. (University of Oxford) in 2000. He is French and lives in London. His essays on Russia and Ukraine can be found on www.scribd.com/antonykharms — The headline of Beevor’s article in The Guardian (1) is “By banning my […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – August 4, 2015) Nearly six in 10 Russians would support the government if it decided to pull the plug on Internet access inside the country in a crisis situation, a recent poll indicates. Support for online censorship or cutting off Internet access altogether was the highest among Russians who never or rarely […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – August 3, 2015) A new poll shows that nearly three-fifths of Russians would support “shutting off the Internet” in the event of a national emergency. According to the poll by the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM), 58 percent of Russians would support such a move, while 49 percent support the idea of […]
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Subject: Re restrictions on foreign orgs in the U.S. Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 14:09:46 -0400 From: Thomas M. Callahan <tom.callahan@yandex.com> There has long been an American statute in place regulating the work of organizations working “in the interests” of foreign powers on American soil. However, it is quite short and, anyway, is a single provision compared to Russia’s extensive […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, July 23, 2015) Vladimir Putin has successfully counted on the war he launched in Ukraine to distract the attention of Russians from their problems at home, but if Russians are to emerge from the current crisis and save their own country, they will have to “forget about Ukraine” and focus on Russia […]
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The New York Times covers online local coverage of the Russo-Ukrainian War in eastern Ukraine. As Luhansk’s prospects looked ever bleaker, Mr. Pavlov and Mr. Kryukov emerged as quirky but candid guides to an unfamiliar war zone, an Internet voice for locals who drop their Russian g’s in homegrown accents and were stunned by the sudden outbreak of violence in […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – July 21, 2015) One of Russia’s last independent newspapers, the Novaya Gazeta weekly, plans to appeal in court the second government warning it has received within a year – which crosses the threshold that allows the authorities to shut it down. Media watchdog Roskomnadzor issued the latest warning for an expletive that […]
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Russia has adopted a law on the so-called “right to be forgotten,” which will require internet search engines to remove links to personal information at the request of citizens. Although State Duma deputies claim the legislation mirrors that of the European Union, industry players strongly oppose the law, predicting a series of lawsuits, while lawyers say that such a right […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – July 8, 2015) Russian lawmakers have kept themselves very busy this year. Over the course of its spring session, which ended Friday, Russia’s State Duma passed a total of 278 new laws. The majority of these were unremarkable – ratifications to international agreements, minor budgetary adjustments and a busload of measures aimed […]
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(Interfax – July 5, 2015) Journalist and opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr. who suffered from strong poisoning and remained in coma in a Moscow hospital for several days has flown aboard for rehabilitation. “Kara-Murza Sr. called me and on behalf of Vladimir’s family asked to thank for the words of support and for assistance. The plane carrying Vladimir has already […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Yekaterina Sinelschikova, RBTH – July 3, 2015) The dismissal of an American lecturer from a leading position at a Russian university following an “incriminating” report on television sparked talk of an increase in the harassment of foreigners. Russian lawmakers are planning to introduce a “patriotic stop list” – a list of foreign funds […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, June 30, 2015) Almost half of Russians have a social network account. As many as 23 per cent use it on a regular basis, 25 per cent use it from time to time and 7 per cent said they have it but do not use it, Levada Centre [pollster] has told Interfax. According to a poll carried […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – June 30, 2015) Somewhere around the 98th minute of his weekly news roundup and commentary for Russia’s Rossiya television channel this week, Dmitry Kiselyov got around to saying something truly unexpected. In his coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriages, the head of Rossia Segodnya, Russia’s massive state-controlled media conglomerate, came out in […]
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Subject: Taking Exception To Sergeant Joe Friday’s Admonition – Give Me The Facts, Just The Facts Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 From: Robert Teets <TeetsR@gorodissky.ru> [Robert Teets is Counsel at Gorodissky & Partners in Moscow] A baby-boomer from Ohio, I was nurtured on an empiricism that runs deep in American character and our television’s archetype of law and order definitively […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Ben Aris in Moscow – June 11, 2015) Is sentiment on the Ukraine-Russia conflict turning amongst Western politicians and journalists? A series of events in the past month suggests so, and in just the last week a string of articles attempted to inject a note of pragmatic realism into the debate, where shrill warmongering […]
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(Interfax – June 11, 2015) Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev believes the mass media should not become a propaganda weapon. “It is obvious that the work of journalists is often very difficult. Journalism is not held in much regard on the media scene, propaganda is much more important. Objective and honest views often contradict ideologies,” Medvedev said at the World […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Houssam Alissa – June 12, 2015) Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev condemned foreign countries who blacklist Russian journalists Thursday and said Russia has no intention of setting up its own blacklist, RIA Novosti reported, despite a series of recent incidents in which Western journalists have been prevented from working in Russia. Medvedev said the barring of […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – June 5, 2015) As several top commentators publicly severed ties with Ekho Moskvy, experts speculated that the editorial policies of Russia’s leading independent radio station have shifted to accommodate a changing society, not to do the Kremlin’s bidding. A number of prominent opposition-minded analysts, economists and literary figures have announced in recent […]
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(RFE/RL – June 2, 2015) Friends and allies of prominent Russian opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, Jr., who mysteriously fell ill with poisoning symptoms in Moscow, say he has regained consciousness after a weeklong coma. “Vladimir has come out of a coma,” former Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky said in a June 2 tweet. Kara-Murza, 33, is a coordinator for Open […]
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(Interfax – June 2, 2015) The all-Russia state television and radio broadcasting company VGTRK said the film, titled “Warsaw Treaty, the Declassified Pages” accumulates accounts by witnesses and participants in events dating back to 1968, without passing any judgments. “The film conveys opinions by historians, witnesses and participants in those events. Nothing is said in the voice-over narration that this […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – June 2, 2015) Russian court hearings into a lawsuit by a former Internet “troll” against her former employer have been postponed after the defendant failed to show up for the proceedings. A city court in St. Petersburg also ruled that the plaintiff, Lyudmila Savchuk – who said her suit was intended to […]
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