Russia

July 20, 2009

The Race Away from Russia

Reuters points out some members of the CIS are having some disagreements with the Kremlin. This year’s Presidential Cup horse race, a traditional cue for an informal gathering of the 11-member Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), drew o...
July 20, 2009

Listening to Eastern Europe

Ever since Barack Obama’s first relatively friendly state visit to Moscow, Washington and the Kremlin have engaged in a showdown of gestures over the elephant in the room:  the legitimacy of Russia’s claim to a privileged sphere o...
July 20, 2009

Saakashvili Looks to Open Up to Survive

This week Vice President Joseph Biden is visiting Georgia, and in honor of being graced with his first high ranking visitor in quite a long time, President Mikheil Saakashvili has released an early copy of his speech to the Wall Street Journal, in...
July 20, 2009

Russian Justice Needs More than Words

Here is an extract from a piece in the Financial Times: A comprehensive peace in the northern Caucasus would require long-term policies to win over the non-Russian peoples through political and social inclusion and economic development, and stabil...
July 20, 2009

Russia’s Media Blackout on Estemirova Murder

Vilhelm Konnander at Global Voices has some translations of LiveJournal users, observing the relative media blackout on the murder of Chechen human rights activist Natalia Estemirova. Whereas Medvedev’s statement on the murder, may have aver...
July 20, 2009

RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – July 20, 2009

TODAY: Kadyrov to sue Memorial head Oleg Orlov for Estemirova accusations; tributes to the murdered activist pour in.  CIS summit not a full house; Poland concerned about reset.  Medvedev lauds Gorbachev’s anti-alcohol drive. To se...
July 17, 2009

A. Lebedev as the Oligarch and Anti-Oligarch

TIME magazine has published a very interesting profile of Alexander Lebedev and his quest to reform Russia.  Robert Amsterdam is quoted in the excerpt below. What is not simple is Russia. That quintessentially Russian query — What is to...
July 17, 2009

The Many Layers of Chinese Diplomacy to Russia

Yesterday we had a brief report summarizing the situation of the closure of the Cherkizovsky market in Moscow, which has had a major economic impact on tens of thousands of Chinese merchants and prompted Beijing to complain.  The Chinese stat...
July 17, 2009

Ivan Safronov and the Bulava Missile

With the Estemirova murder, many journalists are digging through the (regrettably) robust archives of other dead Russian journalists.  One that has always struck me as tragically under-mentioned is the case of Ivan Safronov – he wasn...