Russia

October 22, 2009

RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – Oct 22, 2009

TODAY: Iran willing to contemplate nuclear deal but will Tehran really give it the go-ahead?; arms contract ‘frozen’.  Time running out for state giants; Medvedev loses patience with oligarch corruption complaints.  Biden rea...
October 21, 2009

Grigory Pasko: A Visit to the Khodorkovsky Trial

A lifeless trial Grigory Pasko, journalist Если Вы хотите прочитать оригинал данной статьи на русском языке, нажмите сюда. 1. A non-lyrical digression In the chancellery for civil cases of the Khamovnichesky District Court of Moscow they told me t...
October 21, 2009

MBK Responds to Medvedev: Generation M

The following is a translation of the MBK’s opinion editorial as published today in Vedomosti (original is here). GENERATION M Many of my comrades consider that it is senseless to comment on president Dmitry Medvedev’s famous article &...
October 21, 2009

Probing Russian Privatization

What to make of Russia’s announcement that it will sell stakes in some of its publicly-owned companies next year?  The government has already drawn up a list of 5,500 companies that will be divested, and Bloomberg’s report su...
October 21, 2009

Belgrade And Moscow Tie Energy Knot

The first ever visit by a Russian President to Serbia has yielded another ‘strategic partnership’, this time soldered with a $1.5 billion loan to the debt-hit nation.  A certain diplomatic interdependence between the two countries...
October 21, 2009

A Real Exit?

Today’s news has seen upbeat reports about Russia’s economy waving goodbye to the crisis, with Alexei Kudrin breaking the good news of a possible ‘exit’ from the depression, reporting strong third quarter growth (this growt...
October 21, 2009

RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – Oct 21, 2009

TODAY: Medvedev approves loan for Serbia; Press Freedom Index sees Russia’s standards slump; U.S. says Russia isn’t complying with Georgian cease-fire; Duma walkout deputies ‘might’ be docked for missed sessions; Yukos hear...
October 20, 2009

Grigory Pasko: The Press Fest in Dagomys

Press festival in Dagomys Grigory Pasko, journalist Approximately a thousand journalists from all corners of Russia gathered recently in Dagomys – a little resort town not far from Sochi – in order to take part in the 14th festival «Al...
October 20, 2009

Does Tower Disapproval Go All The Way To The Top?

The Gazprom tower, which threatens to imperil St Petersburg’s UNESCO heritage status, has been the subject of several public protests of late and, as you may remember, some imaginative headlines.  Now the  project seems to have enc...
October 20, 2009

Putin’s History Notes

Spins on the Putin/Medvedev relationship are a mainstay of Russia reporting, but RFE/RL are coming at the diarchy analyses from a new angle today with a recourse to Russian history.  Whilst talk abounds on the likelihood of Putin...