Year: 2008

October 12, 2008

Grigory Pasko: Strasbourg Decides on First Russian Spy Case

The European Court of Human Rights has satisfied the application of former deputy director of the first department of Asia of the MFA of Russia Valentin Moiseyev, sentenced by the Moscow City Court in the year 2001 for state treason to 4.5 years o...
October 12, 2008

21st Century Propaganda Wars

From a book review in the Economist: You could read Mr Vaughan’s book, substituting ex-Soviet countries such as Estonia for Czechoslovakia. With Kremlin talk of “privileged interests” in Russia’s neighbourhood, and a litany of real and imagined gr...
October 12, 2008

Defense Policy and the Russian Stock Market

Someone from Renaissance believes that the more Washington decides to play around in Georgia and the Ukraine, the worse the Russian stock market will perform. To us, that seems to be a clear demonstration of a transparency problem. Marina Akopian,...
October 12, 2008

Putin’s Comeback

Judging by the media’s unabated promotion of his cult of personality, I’d have to agree with John Follett of the Sunday Herald that no one should rule out a political comeback to the presidency of Vladimir Putin. Since he stepped down ...
October 12, 2008

Boris Akunin Reacts to Punishment of Khodorkovsky

The Russian website Izbrannoye, whose motto is “The logic of the main events in Russia and the world”, has just published this brief reaction from Boris Akunin to the unintended consequences of his recently published interview with Mik...
October 10, 2008

Grigory Pasko: A Letter from Iceland

Big turmoil in little Iceland Grigory Pasko, journalist Если Вы хотите прочитать оригинал данной статьи на русском языке, нажмите сюда. Reykjavik, Iceland — Starting on 4 October, I was in Iceland at the invitation of the local branch of Amn...
October 10, 2008

In Crisis, Iceland Introduces a New Currency

Pardon the satirical headline … this image comes to us from Icelandic filmmaker Helga Brekkan, who is currently working on a project involving Grigory Pasko. More about Russia’s bailout of Iceland here.
October 10, 2008

Investigating Deripaska

Wow, Oleg Deripaska is having a rough month. First, the Kremlin’s military adventures in Georgia and playful Cold War confrontation games with the West cost him (and many other oligarchs) several billion, causing him to lose his treasured st...
October 10, 2008

Pressure Mounts on Kudrin

Whenever a financial crisis happens, it is both natural and unfortunate that politicians go after the minister of economy (just take a look at the rapidly shifting hero to villain status of Germany’s Peer Steinbrück). In the case of Russia, ...
October 10, 2008

Putin’s Kitty Cat

Contrary to popular belief, Vladimir Putin’s favorite birthday present was not the death of a journalist this year, but rather a tiger cub. That said, he is rather fond of shooting them… From the Associated Press: State television show...