Month: December 2007

December 6, 2007

RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – Dec. 6, 2007

Members of the pro-Kremlin movement Nashi protest against British ambassador to Russia, Anthony Brenton, seen in banner at left, outside the British Embassy in Moscow, Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2007. Nashi claim that the United Kingdom was sponsoring opp...
December 5, 2007

Belkovsky: Putin’s Personal Fortune No Less than $41 Billion

Although this information from Stanislav Belkovsky is not new, I did not want to let it slip through the cracks. Anders Aslund picked up the quote from the German press: “In a sensational interview in Germany’s Die Welt on Nov. 12, Stanislav...
December 5, 2007

Video: Putin and the Party, the Party and Putin

Here’s a general backgrounder news clip on the Russian (s)elections by France 24. There’s nothing in here any regular reader of this blog wouldn’t already know, but some of the footage and interviews are interesting.
December 5, 2007

The Looming Inflation Crisis in Russia

Edward Hugh has a very interesting and informative blog post over at FoE entitled “Too Much Money Chasing Too Few People, Or Russia’s Current Inflation Problem” which argues that the sudden acceleration in inflation in the region is ne...
December 5, 2007

Grigory Pasko: The Trepashkin Interviews, Part 2

[See Part 1 of Pasko’s interview with the former FSB officer and newly freed political prisoner, Mikhail Trepashkin.] Mikhail Trepashkin Freed – Part 2 By Grigory Pasko, journalist In an exclusive interview with Grigory Pasko, former p...
December 5, 2007

Lugovoi Offers the UK a Tissue

Was the election of Andrei Lugovoi to the Duma on the LDPR ticket a spit in the face of the United Kingdom, which has been seeking his extradition for the murder the Alexander Litvinenko? In response to this question, the plucky (and newly immune ...
December 5, 2007

The Blowback on Velvet Reprivatization

Oleg Shvartsman’s now infamous interview with Kommersant (full translation here), in which he pulled back the curtain on the functioning of the Russian government’s velvet reprivatization, is causing some major blowback. Today the Mosc...
December 5, 2007

David R. Cameron on Article 81

David R. Cameron, a professor of political science at Yale University, has a letter published in the FT today about the easiest way for Vladimir Putin to stay in power: amend Article 81 of the constitution. Thanks to Sunday’s victory at the ...
December 5, 2007

RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – Dec. 5, 2007

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev receives a standing ovation from dignitaries, students, and faculty at the Kennedy School of Government Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2007. at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. after speaking on the 20th anniversa...
December 4, 2007

Grigory Pasko: The Trepashkin Interviews, Part 1

Mikhail Trepashkin freed, Part 1 By Grigory Pasko, journalist On 30 November, former FSB RF officer Mikhail Trepashkin was released from a general regime penal colony in Nizhny Tagil. He had been sentenced on 19 May 2004 by the Moscow District Mil...