Month: September 2007

September 28, 2007

Mikhail Khodorkovsky Statement

English-language translation of statement of September 27, 2007 by Mikhail Khodorkovsky: “Please inform all my lawyers that I am withdrawing the defence from participation in the court hearing about the extension of my custody. The reason fo...
September 28, 2007

Keep Your Chin Up, Brother

From a Reuters article covering the extremism trial in Russia of the political analyst Andrei Piontkovsky: In one of the book’s chapters, the author imagines Putin walking along the beach in France, not long after the Cannes Film Festival, a...
September 28, 2007

Petrov Day

Although we are a few days late, Eliezer Yudkowsky has an excellent blog post calling for a celebration to honor Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov, and admirable and courageous Russian who once saved the world from nuclear holocaust. From Overcoming B...
September 28, 2007

File Under Foregone Conclusions

From today’s painful Bloomberg article: “Investors seek no ‘post-Putin’ Russia” Even some investors who acknowledge the economic benefits of a still-powerful Putin say there are risks in the system’s lack of tra...
September 28, 2007

Kuchins: Russia Looks to FDR

Andrew Kuchins from CSIS has a rather obvious article in the Washington Post today. Although he offers little in the way of new information, at least he seems to have done a better job resisting the regime’s seduction at the Valdai discussio...
September 28, 2007

RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – Sept. 28, 2007

Sergey Lavrov, minister of foreign affairs of the Russian Federation speaks to the press at the presentation of Russia Today and Rusia al-Yaum English and Arabic news channels, Thursday, Sept. 27, 2007 in New York. (AP Photo/Dima Gavrysh) In his f...
September 28, 2007

Why is Russia Terrified of Burma’s Saffron Revolution?

For all that is said about the enigma of Russian politics and the “impenetrable” opacity of Putin’s Kremlin, much can be gleaned from their imagined history – the much ballyhooed new school textbook created by the governmen...
September 27, 2007

Authoritarians, Unite!

Photo: AP Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, during a visit to President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus in July 2006: “There are many possibilities now for forming a strategic alliance to save the world from madness, wars and color revolutions.” W...
September 27, 2007

The Incremental Elimination of Liberty in Russia

Yesterday Bob posted two different articles – one which linked to an article arguing that the world’s autocrats “are learning to eviscerate their peoples’ civic choices incrementally,” and another about the political trial ...
September 27, 2007

The Return of Semeistvennost to the Kremlin?

Today Eurasia Daily Monitor ponders whether or not the recent resignation of the defense minister, later rejected by the president, was just a ploy to hide a new level of nepotism forming in the Russian government. In Soviet times, close relatives...