Year: 2008

January 1, 2008

Who Voted for Putin?

From Tom Keane in the Boston Globe: TIME MAGAZINE named Vladimir Putin its “Person of the Year.” Time Inc. officials said they were surprised at the choice, since the Russian president hadn’t been nominated for the honor and no c...
January 1, 2008

Energy Blast, Jan. 1, 2008

Serbia is deeply divided by Gazprom’s $590 million bid to take over the state petroleum monopoly NIS, a deal which is strongly leveraged upon a connection to the planned South Stream pipeline. The improving profitability of Russia’s do...
January 1, 2008

Oil as the Pillar of Autocracy

From Fouad Ajami in U.S. News and World Report: Beyond the great economic questions posed by this transfer of wealth lies a political matter of increasing importance: the connection between petroleum and autocracy. Oil is the dictators’ drea...
January 1, 2008

Russia’s Year in Review

The Moscow Times has a pretty entertaining version of the obligatory year end retrospective: The outgoing year began with plans by Zenit, the St. Petersburg football club funded by gas giant Gazprom, to build a beer pipeline at its stadium to fuel...
January 1, 2008

RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – Jan. 1, 2008

On New Year’s Day in Russia, there were reports of a sudden shortage of pet rats, a new law banning fireworks, and popular adulation of foreign football coaches. Although 2007 closed with political relations between Russia and the West at a ...