Year: 2008

January 23, 2008

Russia’s Supreme Court Decides to Play God

Below is a translation of an article from Khodorkovsky.ru, dated Jan. 22. It serves as a companion to the Supreme Court transcript of Vasily Alexanyan which we posted earlier. Supreme Court decides to play god Terminally ill Vasily Alexanyan kept ...
January 23, 2008

Russia Yearning for Acceptance in the Global Community

If you are like me, you have probably read about two dozen op/eds in the past year by highly respected thought leaders about how the West should “handle” a “resurgent” Russia. Here is one more from the FT: “How should...
January 23, 2008

Fund Raising in Russia without Reason nor Candidate

Reuben F. Johnson at the Weekly Standard writes about the amusing case of Sergei Zhiltsov and Vladimir Barinov of United Russia, who were fired for suspected fraud for having solicited campaign contributions for Dmitri Medvedev before he was even ...
January 23, 2008

Energy Blast, Jan. 23, 2008

“Gazprom has taken advantage of the disarray inside the European Union by forging ahead with its own contracts with Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary and now Serbia.” Serbia announced that Gazprom bought a 51% stake in NIS, its oil monopoly. Komi Regiongas...
January 23, 2008

RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – Jan. 23, 2008

TODAY: Medvedev makes his first major campaign address, targeting corruption and pledging peaceful development. Kasyanov criminal probe continues with accusations on both sides. Putin’s naval task force exercise “farcical”. Russia’s Prosecut...
January 23, 2008

Today in Russian Business

Russia’s VEB state bank for development and foreign trade plans to swap its 5% stake in EADS for a holding in Russia’s state-owned aircraft maker United Aircraft Corp. Russia’s Transcontainer, a unit of railway monopoly RZhD, pla...
January 22, 2008

Turkmenistan Makes Europe Worry on Gas

As though it weren’t enough for Nabucco to have to compete against the Gazprom-Eni South Stream project, locking the EU into just one supplier from the East. Then Turkmenistan had to go and pull a move out of the Kremlin’s book and cut...
January 22, 2008

RA in the Serbian Press on Gazprom’s NIS Acquisition

This week’s big Gazprom news is that their bid to take over Serbia’s national energy monopoly, NIS, at a knockdown price was successful. A Fistful of Euros has an excellent post summarizing the various motives leading to Serbia offload...
January 22, 2008

Grigory Pasko: Life Behind Bars, Part 2

[Read part 1 of this series here] Life Behind Bars – Part 2 By Grigory Pasko, journalist In every barrack in a colony there is a television. Therefore, in time free from work, the prisoners have the right to watch television shows until 22:0...