Kremlinology Wisdom
Just saw this in the FT: “Kremlinology is not an exact science.” Gee, thanks for imparting that bit of wisdom.
Archive
Fradkov’s Immaculate Resignation and Putin’s Zubkov Shuffle
“It was too early to put Putin in. Someone else had to fill the gap. I needed someone to serve as decoy.” – From Boris Yeltsin’s memoir “Midnight Diaries” (page 284) on the appointment of Vladimir Putin as Prime Minister. Putin was Yeltsin’s...
The Polittechnologist: Putin and his Relatives
Putin and his Relatives By the Polittechnologist The new appointment of a prime minister, seeming so strange to many, actually fits perfectly into the logic of the recent actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Vlad loves himself very much an...
Russian Protestors Set Themselves on Fire
From Stratfor: Russia: Protesters Light Themselves On Fire September 13, 2007 14 06 GMT Two Russian activists from the Yabloko opposition party set themselves on fire Sept. 13 in protest of what they call “Operation Successor,” the Rus...
RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – Sept. 13, 2007
Russian President Vladimir Putin feeds a calf while touring a milk farm in the village of Zorinskiye Dvory in the western Belgorod region of Russia on Thursday, Sept. 13, 2007. (Photo: AP) Reactions to Vladimir Putin’s surprising new choice of Pri...
Bulldogs Under the Carpet
From Yulia Latynina in the Moscow Times, we are reminded of the bulldogs fighting under the carpet in the Kremlin – be it over billions stolen from Yukos, or the fresh kill of Russneft: Moscow’s Tverskoi District Court, for example, fr...
Fradkov’s Resignation Speech
With Mikhail Fradkov’s carefully prepared resignation speech, we are reminded that Russia is desperate to at least “go through the motions” of appearing like a functional democracy. It is astonishing that we are being asked to be...
RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – Sept. 12, 2007
A new ordnance, claimed by the Russian military the world’s most powerful non-nuclear bomb, explodes in a giant fireball during a test in this undated television image shown by Russian Channel One television, Moscow, Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2007....
The Return of Rent-a-Chancellor
Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is back on the scene following a quiet summer, doing what he does best – working hard as the Kremlin’s most expensive public relations rep (the price tag for these services was of course a chai...
Dennis Ross: Are We Powerless to Stop Russia?
Dennis Ross, author and fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, has the following column running in the New Republic. Back in the USSR by Dennis Ross – The New Republic When surveying the challenges we face internationally, ...