Russia

March 13, 2009

RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – March 13th, 2009

TODAY: Protesters mark Day of Dissent; Russia opposed to G20 fiscal stimulus level; US-Russia relations. Putin PR in Novokuznetsk, Khodorkovksy lawyers want indictment redrawn; Boris Nemstov to run for Mayor in Sochi.Several Russian cities saw opp...
March 12, 2009

Inventing the American Threat

Blogging at the Power Vertical, Robert Coalson points out that the Russians may be disinclined from trying very hard to repair relations with Washington when there is so much to gain from anti-Americanism and the permanent fear of an outside enemy...
March 12, 2009

Designer Missile Defense

Dr. Theodore Postol of M.I.T. has an op/ed in the New York Times today arguing for an alternative to the missile defense shield planned for Poland and the Czech Republic.  It seems all fine and good, but Postol is making the assumption that R...
March 12, 2009

RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – March 12th, 2009

TODAY: Kazakh President calls for new Eurasian currency; Russia moves to destroy chemical weapons; Council of Europe will not sanction Russia over human rights issues; opposition slogans under investigation; alcohol, poet charged with inciting hat...
March 11, 2009

Grigory Pasko: A Holiday for Prison Guards

A happy holiday to the successors of the GULAG Grigory Pasko, journalist Soon after 8 March [The Russian shorthand name for International Women’s Day–Trans.] in Russia there impends yet another holiday, about the existence of which our...
March 11, 2009

The Meaning of Verdicts

From Cathy Young at Real Clear Politics: Khodorkovsky’s new trial, which opened last week, is based on charges far more sweeping and more absurd than the first one. He and co-defendant Platon Lebedev are accused of stealing all of the oil pu...
March 11, 2009

Yulia Latynina: The Theft Behind the Khodorkovsky Case

Yulia Latynina has a powerful opinion column in the Moscow Times today about the second show trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, driving home the point that back in 2003, “Putin and Khodorkovsky personified two possible paths for Russia’s d...
March 11, 2009

Today in Russian Business – March 11th, 2009

The financial crisis has had particularly damaging effects on Russia’s monocities – company towns with undiversified economic bases, which are ‘a source of considerable social tension’, says Bloomberg.  Finance Ministe...
March 11, 2009

RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – March 11th, 2009

TODAY: Medvedev outlines further anti-corruption measures, positive on Obama meeting; Russia may abandon plans to supply missile system to Iran; European Court of Human Rights rules against Kremlin; heroin, disappearing ink. As part of his drive a...