Russia

December 10, 2010

The Tbilisi Bombings

Just before dawn on Sept. 22, a small bomb exploded about 100 yards away from the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia, leading to the discovery of another explosive device in a nearby cemetery.  In the following weeks, a series of mysterious nig...
December 10, 2010

RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – Dec 10, 2010

TODAY: Khimki highway to go ahead; restrictions for protesters; migalki to be regulated; St Petersburg tower to be relocated; Putin slams hypocritical Western treatment of Assange; Serbian leaks; NATO insists relations are improving; are...
December 9, 2010

Grigory Pasko: Secrecy – the Wisdom of Idiots

Recently they showed on the Russian television how head of the Federal Service for Financial Monitoring (Rosfinmonitoring) Yuri Chikhanchin was accounting before the prime minister of Russia for work done. He, in particular, reported that in the c...
December 9, 2010

Permanent Putin?

From the Economist: The likeliest outcome is that the two will try to preserve their tandem one way or another. Kremlin officials dismiss talk of dead ends as pointless whining and alarmism from liberals. The prevailing view is that the system wor...
December 9, 2010

RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – Dec 9, 2010

TODAY: Police light-handed with nationalist footballers; Memorial activist attacked; corruption estimates and counter-forces; Roscosmos plays down Glonass crash; Rogozin calls for NATO admission; terrorist attacks double; airplanes did fly near US...
December 8, 2010

RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – Dec 8, 2010

TODAY: Russia will join WTO next year; Rogozin to dispute secret NATO defense plans; WikiLeaks reveals Russia’s assistance on Libya’s uranium; Medvedev moves on child welfare, has enough public support for re-election; Volgograd and Mo...
December 7, 2010

Medvedev Considers Sale of State Media Holdings

Very interesting speculation from William Dunkerley in The Moscow Times that Medvedev may make moves to sell off state media holdings – which would be a tremendous boon to freedom of the press.  There are, of course, a number of other o...
December 7, 2010

RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – Dec 7, 2010

TODAY: Medvedev’s Polish meet is successful; EU-Russia talks to focus on WTO accession; new WikiLeaks reveal secret NATO plans to protect Baltic States; media control originates in poor profitability?; Putin’s United Russia comments co...
December 6, 2010

Russia to Control Half of U.S. Uranium

We’ve been following this developing deal between Canada’s Uranium-One and the Rosatom subsidiary ARMZ, but it’s only this week that it looks like the transaction is wrapping up with U.S. approval from CIFIUS.  The Financial...
December 6, 2010

Nothing to Miss about the Cold War

A good response to Robert Kaplan’s recent pining for the comforts of ideological clarity of the Cold War is published on RCW’s Compass blog. Today’s international environment, as Kaplan eludes to, is quite different. American pow...