Month: November 2007

November 26, 2007

Video: Press Freedom Group Awards Muratov of Novaya Gazeta

I caught this one over at the Nation blog of editor Katrina Vanden Heuvel, who helped present the Committee to Protect Journalists International Press Freedom Award to Dmitri Muratov of Novaya Gazeta, one of Anna Politkovskaya’s closest coll...
November 26, 2007

TOL on United Russia’s Identity Crisis

Transitions Online has been putting out some great material on the Russian elections lately, including today’s article by Ilya Tarasov and Peter Rutland about United Russia: “But the party now faces an identity crisis of sorts. It was ...
November 26, 2007

Grigory Pasko: Eye on Sochi, Part III

[Also see Part I and Part II of this series] Part III: Special Operation «Olympiad» By Grigory Pasko, journalist The Olympic Chekists The creation of the state corporation «Olympstroy» was implemented in strict compliance with the standard chekist...
November 26, 2007

The Enduring Enigma of Grigory Yavlinsky

Well, it’s about that time of year when everybody pays a little attention to great Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky, who is making yet another tireless run at the presidency. It has become almost painful to see a talented politician like Yav...
November 26, 2007

Trenin: The Supreme Irony of Putin’s Refusal to Abdicate

Dmitri Trenin, author of some books about Russian politics, has a series of online Q&A sessions with readers of the Financial Times. Although we generally like the analysis coming out of Carnegie, and believe that Trenin can occasionally offe...
November 26, 2007

Pliant Courts and Crooked Bureaucrats

An editorial on Russia’s crackdown on protests in the Wall Street Journal today puts the Yukos affair into context: The pivotal event was Yukos. Before this case, it was hard to imagine that the Kremlin could ever go so far as to use a tax e...
November 26, 2007

RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – Nov. 26, 2007

Former chess champion Garry Kasparov is detained by police during an opposition rally in Moscow, Saturday, Nov. 24, 2007. Riot police on Saturday broke up an anti-Kremlin rally of several thousand people, detaining some of the protesters, includin...
November 25, 2007

Interview with Olga Mikhailova, Garry Kasparov’s Lawyer

One of the great strengths of this blog is that we actually have the resource of people who speak Russian, as well as our own correspondents in Russia. This allows us to offer you such exclusive breaking stories as the following, in which Garry Ka...
November 25, 2007

Interview with Karinna Moskalenko, Garry Kasparov’s Lawyer

Garry Kasparov and Karinna Moskalenko. Photo from last April (AP) Earlier today I had the chance to speak with Karinna Moskalenko on the phone, who is currently in Strasbourg, about the arrest and incarceration of her client Garry Kasparov. The ev...
November 25, 2007

A Mugging in Moscow

I’ve just got off the phone with my colleague Karinna Moskalenko, one of Garry Kasparov‘s brave lawyers, who once again finds herself working throughout the night to free her client from an arbitrary detention. Before posting my brief ...