Month: February 2009

February 23, 2009

RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – Feb 23rd, 2009

TODAY: Anti-Kremlin protest in Moscow draws ‘several hundred’; Medvedev criticizes the speed of government’s anti-crisis measures. US to take Russian concerns into account on missile defense; China deems Russia’s actions &#...
February 23, 2009

Russia’s Dirtiest Corner

From the editorial page of the Financial Times: It is no surprise that Russia suffers some political violence, given the strains involved in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse. But the authorities’ failure to respond properly...
February 22, 2009

Undermining Rule of Law in the Second Khodorkovsky Trial

The following is an extract of a comment I wrote up for the legal news website JURIST on the due process violations that have characterized the run up to the second trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, due to begin in some weeks: The defense team underl...
February 20, 2009

500 Pounds of Uranium

Today, the Council on Foreign Relations interviews David Albright, President of the Institute for Science and International Security, who thinks Iran will acquire enough low-enriched uranium this year to “reach the first level of breakout ca...
February 20, 2009

Ambassadorial Ethics

A new survey by the Sofia Center for Social Studies says that only one quarter of Ukrainian citizens think Russia is a “friendly state and strategic partner.” Meanwhile, we already know what many Ukrainians think of Russian ambassador ...
February 20, 2009

Political Murders Continue to Go Unpunished

From the Washington Post’s coverage of the acquittal of defendants in the Anna Politkovskaya trial: The verdict came one month after a well-known human rights lawyer, Stanislav Markelov, and a student journalist, Anastasia Baburova, were gun...
February 20, 2009

Energy Blast – Feb 20th, 2009

EU energy ministers are ‘wrangling’ over how to spend 3.75 billion euros ($4.7 billion) on securing energy supplies after the most recent Russia-Ukraine gas crisis.  Is another crisis of this kind inevitable?  Ukraine’s...
February 20, 2009

Today in Russian Business – Feb 20th, 2009

Vladimir Yakunin, the boss of Russian Railways, has criticized Russia’s Central Bank for not holding back Russian’s firms from taking on excessive foreign debt.  Click here for the report and video of the interview with the BBC.&n...
February 20, 2009

RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – Feb 20th, 2009

TODAY: Responses to Politkovskaya verdict; Khodorkovsky to be moved to Moscow ahead of trial; Russia to supply grain to Brazil? US-Russia relations, reflections on Kyrgyz base closure; Medvedev reassures the military.The unanimous ‘not guilt...
February 19, 2009

O Brother [of Russia], Where Art Thou?

We haven’t heard much lately from our occasional Russian political analyst, the Polittechnologist – apparently he’s been spending much of his time in various third-world countries south of the equator. On a recent trip closer to ...