RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – Nov 4, 2011
TODAY: Is Unity Day; to be marked by nationalist marches; divisions between patriotic factions emerge; Navalny’s decision to attend greeted with controversy. Voina’s latest action; Youtube offers locus for satire; the spurious use of Russia’s anti-terrorism law. Viktor Bout outcry continues; Moscow’s tit-for-tat on Magnitsky sanctions; Russia and China judged world’s top cybercriminals by US; Bolshoi Ballet returns with rocky start.
More than 5,000 policemen will be deployed in Moscow today to safeguard public order during the celebration of National Unity Day, which may attract up to 10,000 nationalist marchers. An integral part of Russia or a burden? RFE/RL examines the conflicting views on the Caucasus voiced by factions planning to attend today’s rally. The news that prominent anti-corruption blogger Aleksei Navalny plans to attend has been blasted by some fellow liberals as an unsavory flirtation with chauvinism, but accepted by others as an attempt to appeal to some of the ‘popular’ elements within the political spectrum. Click here to see an interview with members of radical art collective Voina on their latest work from Prague. The BBC looks at the blossoming of Russian satire thanks to Youtube videos. How the Kremlin’s new ‘anti-terrorism’ law is being used against its own citizens. ‘The Russian president […] has moved Moscow one hour farther away from Berlin, Paris, London and New York — just as it has moved Moscow farther and farther away from such Western cultural values as transparency, human rights and the rule of law’: the words of Masha Gessen in the New York Times.