Gudkov: Govt Must Respond to Demands of Protesters

From Catherine Belton at the Financial Times: Some warn that Mr Putin’s reluctance to respond to any of the opposition’s demands – such as a thorough investigation of vote rigging claims or the removal of the head of the central election commission – is radicalising some parts of the movement. “The authorities are pretending that […]

Yury Saprykin: Quo Vadis, Opposition?

Putin may have won the election, but there is no excuse for the manner in which it was handled. On the one hand, those who say that the rallies have not achieved any of its goals are right. On the other hand, they did achieve many goals that were not directly declared, such as the emergence of tens of thousands of people committed to fair elections.

Yeltsin’s 1999 Speech Introducing Putin

On New Year’s Eve 1999, President Boris Yeltsin shocked the Russian public with a sudden resignation speech, introducing into power for the first time his then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who up until the moment had been virtually unknown.  In light of Putin’s third-and-a-half coronation this past Sunday, Yeltsin’s words strike a chord in some sort […]

To Crack Down, Or to Crack Down with Leniency

Julia Ioffe’s scenes from last night’s protests rejecting the outcomes of Vladimir Putin’s massaged victory margin offer a harrowing look into the next six years (broken arms, trampled journalists, and a breakdown in chain of authority), and points out that it was completely unnecessary from a strategic perspective for the Kremlin. On the eve of […]

CBC The Current Interviews Robert Amsterdam on Russian Elections

The Current interviews RA this week to discuss the Russian elections, his experience on the Khodorkovsky case, and the Red Shirt movement in Thailand.

Video: No Putin, No Cry

Carving Up the Power Vertical

Brian Whitmore of RFE/RL talks to both Nicholas Gvosdev and Edward Lucas on the outcome of the elections: A divided elite, analysts say, opens up the possibility for the protest movement to push harder for political and economic reform. Gvosdev notes that it also allows for independent centers of power and influence to develop in […]

Video: Vladimir Putin Weeps and Celebrates

Putin Celebrates Victory with an Imported Crowd

Although official results from the election will not be available until tomorrow, Vladimir Putin has already given a victory speech proclaiming, “We have won in an open and fair struggle. (…) We defeated those who want Russia destroyed.”  To make sure he had a nice big crowd of enthusiastic supporters to look good on TV, […]

Putin Wins Third Term

According to exit polls cited by the BBC, Vladimir Putin has secured a comfortable victory in the 2012 presidential elections with more than 60% of the vote.  It is interesting how close the preliminary numbers are to the Levada polls from two weeks ago – we may expect him to get precisely 62%.