Video: Guilty as Politically Charged
Russia
Rule Makers and Rule Takers
Early in the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev, many in the West were hoping for a turn away from state corruption and toward the rule of law in Russia. Unfortunately that train has now left the station. From Moscow to Brasilia to Beijing, there has e...
Putin’s Palace by the Sea
For those of you who have not yet seen Sergey Kolesnikov’s open letter to President Dmitry Medvedev regarding allegations of corruption by Vladimir Putin’s entourage to extort upwards of a billion dollars to build a personal palace on ...
Potemkin Stability
Paul Goble has summarized an important argument by Olesya Yakhno published on Vlasti.net with regard to the increasingly tenuous illusion of stability in the wake of violent race riots at the walls of the Kremlin. It’s these perceptions and ...
Wikistroika
Bloomberg has a strange news story on a deal brokered between Julian Assange and Novaya Gazeta – the opposition newspaper owned by liberal billionaire Alexander Lebedev and Mikhail Gorbachev. Apparently Assange has granted them access ...
Mr. Medvedev’s Trip to Bollywood
Dmitry Medvedev has had an action-packed trip to Mumbai. Accompanied by a delegation of some 100 state businessmen, the Russian president arrived in Delhi to announce his high regard for their “privileged” partnership, and urged ...
Grigory Pasko: Russia Takes Flight, Toward the Past
Editor’s note: Readers who have ever had the pleasure of flying in Russia or the Near Abroad have likely experienced the phenomenon of the rolling two-hour rescheduling of flights. Soviet aviation rules, which have remained unchanged for dec...
Faking Democracy in Belarus
It takes a lot of effort to fake a democratic vote. Sure, there are some outstanding examples, such as the 100% victory of Saddam Hussein in his 2002 election, or one of Fidel Castro’s many victories at the ballot box in excess of 99% ...
Tolerance and Nationalism
The Financial Times is running an editorial today suggesting that the Russian leadership would be wise to change its tune with regard to ultra-right nationalists The Kremlin itself must share the blame for the fact that it now faces such a sizeabl...
Video: How to Pressure a Court
Vladimir Putin provides a textbook lesson in legal nihilism, pronouncing guilt before verdict, launching blood libel accusations completely unrelated to the charges, and pressuring the court against his favorite political prisoner, Mikhail Khodork...