Russia

December 2, 2009

Chechnya murders make FP’s Top 10 missed stories of 2009

Ranking at number 8, I will let Joshua Keating’s words speak for themselves: The world was shocked in July by the murder of human rights activist Natalya Estemirova in Chechnya. Suspicions immediately focused on the Chechen Kremlin-backed st...
December 2, 2009

RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – Dec 2, 2009

TODAY: Activists call for investigation into death of journalist Olga Kotovskaya, ruled as suicide, they say murder; Magnitsky letters reveal extent of abuse; the judiciary fights back against corruption.  OSCE unexcited by Medvedev pact; Rog...
December 2, 2009

Portraits worth thousands of words

“A photographic portrait is a picture of someone who knows he’s being photographed, and what he does with this knowledge is as much a part of the photograph as what he’s wearing or how he looks. He’s implicated in what̵...
December 2, 2009

The plight of the Russian entrepreneur

U.S. National Public Radio has a five minute segment today on the challenges Russian small businesses face in an environment that favours government-dependent organisations: Not a lot of shockers in here, but just thought I’d draw attention ...
December 1, 2009

Unthinking Russia

Writing in Foreign Policy about who got left of the magazine’s Top 100 list of global thinkers, Moisés Naím shows that there’s no love lost between him and contemporary Russia.  Ouch!  But if pressed to contradict this statem...
December 1, 2009

Does Top-Down Modernization Work?

Here’s an interesting bit from a Transitions Online opinion article about President Dmitry Medvedev’s state-centered modernization proposal: Such an approach may have worked for Germany and Japan in the late 19th century, or the East A...
December 1, 2009

Russian Views of the Obama Reset

I have read Ivan Krastev’s curious article in the Washington Post today, and although there were some parts that weren’t quite so persuasive (Russia is not “a declining power”), he does get it right about how Washington fai...
December 1, 2009

RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – Dec 1, 2009

TODAY: Browder on Magnitsky; Luzkhov wins his Nemtsov libel suit; blogging fury prompts cancellation of dacha tender; HIV rates on the up; discrimination follows apace.  OSCE to discuss Medvedev security proposals; analysts wonder whether dra...
December 1, 2009

Yukos Gets Major Win with ECT Arbitration

From the Wall Street Journal: A European arbitration panel Monday ruled that an expropriation claim valued at up to $100 billion by former shareholders of bankrupt oil giant OAO Yukos can proceed against the Russian government, the plaintiffs said...
November 30, 2009

Grigory Pasko: Déjà Vu with Putin in Paris

I’m listening to Putin, who’s in Paris, and I’m thinking: either I’ve got déjà vu, or he’s got it… Если Вы хотите прочитать оригинал данной статьи на русском языке, нажмите сюда. Paris. 27 November 2009. Mr. V.P...