Russia

October 13, 2009

RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – October 13, 2009

TODAY: Clinton in town looking for answers on Iran, will meet Lavrov and Medvedev; Rogozin refuses to be out-twittered; United Russia confirmed to have powered through regional elections.  New book ‘Without Putin’ by Mikhail Kasya...
October 12, 2009

How Russia Learned to Love the (Iranian) Bomb

Out of the many, many interesting quotes we got from Vice President Joe Biden during his famously candid Wall Street Journal interview (which sounded like it was done in a cocktail lounge), was the following appraisal of the United States believes...
October 12, 2009

Headline of the Week

I know it’s only Monday, but I doubt we’ll see another headline like this on the Gazprom Tower in St. Petersburg story… Ouch.
October 12, 2009

A Misunderstood Masterpiece

Writing on RFE/RL, Charli Carpenter has an opinion piece on the EU report on the Russia-Georgia war of August 2008.  Carpenter takes a bit of a refreshing approach to a tired subject, pointing out that the entrenched pundits on both sides are...
October 12, 2009

Rogozin vs. NATO, in 140 characters or less

One criticism that you not likely to hear about the Russian government is its lack of enthusiastic applications of new media technologies.  The Prime Minister posts his topless photos at a much more timely rate that the White House page is up...
October 12, 2009

Video: Ed Lucas and Vladimir Bukovsky

Although I believe this is a few weeks old, I just came across this video of Edward Lucas speaking at the Oslo Freedom Forum, providing an introduction for the dissident Vladimir Bukovsky.  After the jump, there are the three separate videos ...
October 12, 2009

Local Elections, National Complaints

Yesterday Russia went through another one of its time-honored traditions of organized elections under sovereign democracy, and as may well be expected, United Russia swept 76 of 83 regions – helped no doubt by the strictly controlled lack of...
October 12, 2009

RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – October 12, 2009

TODAY: United Russia sweep polls at regional elections; accusation of vote-rigging fly.  Mitvol receives unusual delivery.  Medvedev had no time for Yushchenko at CIS summit; positive on Obama’s peace prize; Ecuador looking for wea...
October 9, 2009

The Nashi Thought Police

It is always surreal when extremist hate groups engage in traditional, organized communications methods, like a Hezbollah newsletter, a FARC press release, or a Nashi press conference (not that I am suggesting similarities between these very diffe...
October 9, 2009

Washington’s Ukrainian Missile Improvisation

Just when you thought the latest Nobel peace prize winner had sold the farm and caved into Russia, we get this little ditty from the former ambassador to Russia, Alexander Vershbow, who talks about the possibility of stationing the new missiles in...