Month: May 2007

May 11, 2007

“A New Species” of Bureaucratic Capitalists

Lilia Shevtsova of the think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is quoted in today’s Financial Times remarking on the rise of “a new species” of bureaucratic capitalists in the Kremlin. From the FT: “The slow murder ...
May 11, 2007

Robert Amsterdam in the Guardian: Where Business is Politics

RA has an op/ed column running today on the Guardian website. Where Business is Politics The British government should take action to protect investors in Russia By Robert R Amsterdam At the recent Russian Economic Forum, the British secretary of ...
May 10, 2007

Comments on the Final Yukos Auctions

As many of you are aware, tomorrow the bankruptcy liquidator will be holding the final auctions of Yukos assets, and, as we all expected, Rosneft is raking in the lion’s share of oil production assets at vast discounts (just 7.4% above the o...
May 10, 2007

Yukos Is the Turning Point of Russian Authoritarianism

The new Economist has an article reviewing the meaning and legacy of the Yukos affair, emphasizing the enormous damage done to rule of law, how the assets were passed from one set of private hands to another (people too often believe that the publ...
May 10, 2007

Cashing in on Empire

Today Yulia Latynina has an important column running in the Moscow Times, which makes mention of a new item of legislation in the United States that would remove sovereign immunity from countries participating in cartels. Yulia is a national treas...
May 10, 2007

Illarionov on the Yukos Expropriation

Today and tomorrow, the final two “auctions” of Yukos productions assets will be held, which will likely deliver the valuable properties at an enormous discount directly or indirectly to state-owned Rosneft. As the key beneficiary of t...
May 9, 2007

45 % of Russians Expect a Rigged Election

A new survey from the Levada Center shows that many Russians are doubting that the upcoming elections will be free and fair (hat tip Siberian Light). From the Guardian: The survey by Russia’s top polling agency found that 39% of voters expec...
May 9, 2007

Russia-Estonia 101

This news clip features a brief summary of the historical background of the current Russia-Estonia dispute over the war memorial.
May 9, 2007

Celebrating Victory Day, Putin Defaults to Instinct

Most everyone I have been speaking to this week was indeed expecting Vladimir Putin to make some comments about Estonia during his Victory Day speech, and, true to form, he did not disappoint. In addition to his harsh warning, he also speaks of &#...
May 9, 2007

Grigory Pasko: Fools and Roads

Fools and Roads – Some Facts from Russian Reality By Grigory Pasko, journalist Story #1 Recently, at a meeting with students of the Far Eastern Automobile Road Institute, the first deputy chairman of the government of the RF, Sergey Ivanov, ...