Archive

November 26, 2009

Russia Admits Partial Guilt in Prison Death

Just yesterday the Interior Ministry held a provocative press conference on the Hermitage and Sergei Magnitsky matter, denying they had any knowledge of his untreated illness.  It prompted a press release response from Browder’s people ...
November 26, 2009

Russia Accused of Torture in Magnitsky Death

My thanks to Streetwise Professor for pointing toward this Moscow Times piece by Sergei Guriev and Aleh Tsyvinsky.  I especially like the Prof’s comment:  “I have a question for the self-styled Russophiles on this site, who c...
November 26, 2009

Energy Blast – Nov 26, 2009

Ahead of the UN Conference in Copenhagen next month, the US has announced its target for cutting greenhouse gas emissions – which ‘will be widely regarded as far from satisfactory in its detail‘, says The Independent.  Are d...
November 26, 2009

Today in Russian Business – Nov 26, 2009

Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin’s comments on Russia’s ‘overheating‘ economy ‘are dragging the market down,‘ says this analyst.  Kudrin also announced that Vneshekonombank, on whose board he sits, will buy a...
November 26, 2009

RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – Nov 26, 2009

TODAY: Investigators deny knowledge of Magnitsky’s illness; protesters hold ‘funeral for democracy’; could YouTube complaint success lead to curbs?; Putin in France; customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan; expat communities, v...
November 25, 2009

How to Earn Putin Points and Survive in Russian Business

I was taken aback the other day to open up the Moscow Times website and find an glowing opinion article written by Brian Zimbler, a Moscow based lawyer of the firm Dewey & LeBoeuf.  The article, which heaped praise upon Russia as an impro...
November 25, 2009

Putin’s Eye of the Tiger

Remember back when Vladimir Putin “saved” a group of journalists from a wild Amur tiger, dramatically shooting it on national television?  It was probably his most imaginative PR stunt, at least up until he jumped into a submarine...
November 25, 2009

Grigory Pasko: The Gulag Unconcious

The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung wrote : “He who has achieved a perception of reality is inevitably solitary” [This is a translation of the Russian version of Jung’s essay “The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man”....
November 25, 2009

Tough Times for Putin’s Popularity

Some poll numbers and commentary from Nikolai Petrov: Public trust in the work of Putin fell from a peak of 72 percent in mid-October to 65 percent on November 22, the lowest point since March, according to weekly poll figures posted on the site o...
November 25, 2009

Is Russia Experiencing a Change of Heart on Iran?

Writing at the New Republic, Michael Crowley scrounges deep down in the evidence bin for an argument on Russia’s Iran policy: In recent weeks, Barack Obama’s foreign policy has been derided by critics who say he has...