“Nothing Will Be Decided”

By James Kimer | Published: March 4, 2012

This pretty much sums up the bitterness a lot of people are feeling today.  From the New York Times: Sergei N. Tanikov, 57, a retired lieutenant colonel in the KGB, said he was voting for Mr. Zyuganov and planned to join the protest on Monday evening. “Today nothing will be decided,” Mr. Tanikov said outside […]

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Video: 12 Years of Putin in 2 Minutes

By James Kimer | Published:

Pretty good.  

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The Bogus Assassination Plot

By James Kimer | Published:

Did anyone, even for just a moment, really believe that there was some sort of credible threat to assassinate Vladimir Putin before the election?  Did anyone think that the announcement of this foiled plot was somewhat strategic? No.    Here goes Neil Buckley in the Financial Times, who lists no less than four separate foiled plots […]

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The Botox Czar: An Interview with Nina Khrushcheva

By James Kimer | Published: March 3, 2012

Tomorrow Vladimir Putin will most likely waltz back into the presidency with some 60% of the vote, but his tough guy image as the “father of the nation,” is lost forever, says Nina Khrushcheva, a professor of International Affairs at the New School and the author of Imaging Nabokov.

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What Happens After

By James Kimer | Published: March 2, 2012

Another good article by Konstantin von Eggert, this time in the Financial Times: Life will not return to 2007, when Mr Putin presided over unprecedented economic growth and was acclaimed by a majority of the population (including many of those now taking to the streets in protest against his policies) as a leader of all […]

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A Conspiratorial View of the World

By James Kimer | Published: March 1, 2012

John Lough, a fellow at Chatham House, has an interesting piece published on the possibilities of change for Russia’s foreign policy with the onset of Putin’s next term. The article shows that recent political events in Russia, while not inspired by the Arab Spring, are clearly connected for Putin and his entourage through their conspiratorial […]

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Zyuganov: Always the Bridesmaid, Never the Bride

By James Kimer | Published: February 9, 2012

Charles Clover of the Financial Times has a good piece on Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov’s role as Vladimir Putin’s insurance policy.  Is there any other leader that lost this many elections and continues to be the party’s candidate? Mr Zyuganov’s long stewardship of the Communist party exemplifies the primacy of “managed” democracy in Russia, […]

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Russia’s Media Censorship Loosens

By James Kimer | Published: February 3, 2012

Ahead of tomorrow’s planned protests in Moscow, the usually docile Russian state media has been experimenting with some more diverse programming, according to Charles Clover in the Financial Times: Russian TV viewers, long accustomed to boring, government-approved fare on the nightly news, got a surprise on Sunday when protest leaders Boris Nemtsov and Vladimir Ryzhkov […]

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Putin’s Bipolar Economic Thinking

By James Kimer | Published: February 2, 2012

Following Vladimir Putin’s 5,000-word treatsie on his vision for the Russian economy published in Vedomosti, we decided to give a call the venerable economist Dr. Craig Pirrong, otherwise known as the Streetwise Professor, and hear his thoughts on some of Putin’s main arguments.

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How to Make Russia Pay its Debts: An Interview with Franz Sedelmayer

By James Kimer | Published: February 1, 2012

In this exclusive interview, German businessman Franz J. Sedelmayer discusses his decades-long dispute with the Russian government, challenging Russia’s sovereign immunity, and the link between state corruption and the current environment of civil unrest in Russia.

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