Russia

December 27, 2008

Legal Nihilism in Suspended Animation

It’s been a pretty slow news week in Russia, and my suspicion that this involves something more than just the approach of the Jan. 7 Orthodox Christmas. We’ve had relatively few events of any major importance in the political environme...
December 26, 2008

The Orthodox Media

Karl Marx’s famous declaration of religion being the opium of the masses continues to raise interesting discussions even today, as various observers debate the new role of church-and-state ties in the context of moral ambiguity and armed con...
December 26, 2008

FSB Connections to Murdered Journalists

In light of the unraveling of the prosecution’s case in the Anna Politkovskaya trial, David Satter has a new column in Forbes detailing some of the alleged connections between the FSB and several murder cases of journalists. The involvement ...
December 26, 2008

Voloshin Joins Norilsk Board

Various analysts have been predicting over the fall that the economic crisis would provide the Russian government with an opportunity to gradually take over the crown jewel of mining, Norilsk Nickel.  Today’s appointment of Alexander Vo...
December 26, 2008

Predictably Unpredictable

David Kakabadze of RFE/RL has a piece up commenting on Russia’s successful campaign to eliminate most outside participants (the OSCE) from the conflict resolution process in the Caucases – and argues that the West should really stop pr...
December 26, 2008

Kremlin Declares its Sphere of Influence in Business

It is rational and logical for some governments to declare certain sectors of the economy as sensitive to national security, and therefore requiring some type of overview process before allowing foreign ownership and management – defense and...
December 26, 2008

RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – Dec 26th, 2008

TODAY: Medvedev interview focuses on security and sport, dodges Khodorkovsky question; soldiers sent into regions badly hit by economic crisis; Orthodox media.President Dmitry Medvedev’s Christmas Eve message to Russians focused on Russian s...
December 25, 2008

Pashin: Courts Are Not Meant to Serve the FSB

The other day I was reading an interesting article over The Power Vertical, which was published last week, about an open letter signed by the eminently respected former Moscow City Court judge Sergei Pashin to President Dmitry Medvedev urging him ...
December 25, 2008

Russia’s Forex Gets a Much Needed Holiday Bump

This is very good news, if not unexpected, for Russia’s economy – thanks to a rise in the value of the euro and greater efforts by commercial banks to make foreign currency deposits, the country’s foreign exchange reserves rose b...