Year: 2008

July 28, 2008

Understanding the Attack on Mechel

The photo to the left shows Vladimir Putin, along with Viktor Khristenko and Governor Valery Shantsev, arriving last Thursday to Nizhny Novgorod to meet with the country’s top metals producers (source: AP). A few hours later Putin would surp...
July 28, 2008

Boris Kuznetsov and the Kremlin’s War on Lawyers

For quite some time we have carefully followed lawyer Boris Kuznetsov’s clash with Russia’s FSB as an emblematic case of the Kremlin’s war on lawyers and the independence of the judiciary. Since being granted political asylum in ...
July 28, 2008

Grigory Pasko: Electricity, Hockey, and Murder in Russia

Remarks on Russian reality Grigory Pasko, journalist 1. Fools and roads 130 kilometers outside Moscow in Vladimir Oblast is the little village of Ileykino. From Ileykino to the nearest population center with shops, a hospital and school – is 8 kil...
July 28, 2008

China Could Buy BP?

Steve LeVine has a good blog post up about TNK-BP, and how this business dispute will probably become the subject of academic study some day as a symbol of how the energy sector is changing. He quotes several analysts who recommend that BP should ...
July 28, 2008

The Axis of Energy

Ariel Cohen and Ray Walser have a new article arguing that the Russian-Venezuelan energy alliance is a throwback to the Cold War era Cuban-Soviet relations, and that these leaders are “well-positioned to plan substantial international mischi...
July 28, 2008

Raising Russia’s Risk Premium

Andrew Langley at the Wall Street Journal talks with a lot of very pessimistic analysts following the market fiasco in Russia last week: Although many observers in Moscow expect that situation to ease as Mechel acts on Mr. Putin’s remarks an...
July 28, 2008

Energy Blast – July 28, 2008

“TNK-BP’s messy shareholder dispute has helped push Russia’s indexes into a downward spin.” In what appears to be a change in tactics, prosecutors in Moscow have denied issuing legal proceedings against the venture’s chief, Robert Dudl...
July 28, 2008

Today in Russian Business – July 28, 2008

Russian authorities may apply an American racketeering law in a Moscow court in their attempt to recover billions of dollars in damages from the Bank of New York Mellon. A decision on the case is to be made today. Mechel, the company accused by Pr...
July 28, 2008

RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – July 28, 2008

TODAY: Russia trying to weaken NATO; the Cuban Missile Crisis of 2008; Russia puts military-purpose satellite into orbit, plans to strengthen navy; Foreign Ministry says Bush comments insulted veterans; Russia to remake Britain’s The Office. Russi...