This has been the week where foreign policy battles have been waged in newspaper op-eds. First, Russian President Vladimir Putin wrote an editorial in the New York Times, criticizing the Obama administration’s rush to war in Syria. In response, an indignant Senator John McCain, highly critical of both Assad and Putin, demanded to write an […]
On Monday, September 16th, there was a shooting at the Naval Yard in Washington, D.C., which left 13 people dead. While initial reporting of the incident was notoriously, or perhaps even hilariously, full of false information, by the following day, many of the misinformation had been cleared up. This, among other things, makes the following […]
Many people across the globe are debating Syria, and the content of Vladimir Putin’s editorial in the New York Times. However, in Snob.ru, a Russian online magazine with a somewhat more liberal slant, the debate is not just about the content of the editorial, but about the wisdom of reportedly paying a PR company to […]
Voter turnout in Moscow’s elections was less than 34%, while the sociologists forecasted 45-52%. What’s wrong with Muscovites? That’s what The New Times tried to figure out Six hours after the opening of polling stations the turnout was disastrously low, below 17%, then it went up, but in the end turned out to be still […]
This week’s headline concerning Russia’s elections has focused on how United Russia has lost power, or at least has struggled to maintain its power. The most obvious example is in Moscow, where United Russia incumbent Sergei Sobyanin clings to an official vote count that, if it holds, would barely prevent a runoff election. All the […]
While the focus is on Moscow, for many obvious reasons, we’ll also be trying to look at election results from across Russia in order to get a sense of the larger trends in Russia’s electoral process. This is a report about a heated and contested mayoral election in Yekaterinburg (sometimes written as “Ekaterinburg,” map), the 4th […]
Vladimir Pastukhov writes this saucy analogy for the liberal newspaper, Novaya Gazeta. In it he compares Russia’s reaction to Ukraine’s attempts to join the European Union to the actions of a scorned wife as her husband leaves her for a better offer. For more information, see our analysis of the Customs Union and our newest […]
The television channel Moscow 24 has refused to air a campaign ad from Moscow mayoral candidate Nikolai Levichev, Izvestiya reports. As the official refusal states, the commercial does not meet the requirements of election legislation. Alla Alekseyeva, a lawyer for Just Russia announced that the video had not aired, since Moscow 24 believed that the […]
The Central Election Commission (CEC) published data on financial flows to the accounts of political parties for the second quarter of 2013. It turned out that the largest party in the country [United Russia – Ed.] is rapidly losing sponsors. Now it takes only the fifth place in the list in terms of monetary contributions […]
Yesterday, the evening news on all the federal TV channels came out with a message about the development of the transport infrastructure of Moscow and the Moscow region. President Vladimir Putin visited the construction site of the Northern Bypass road in Odintsovo, linking Moscow Beltway and Minsk highway. The head of state was accompanied by […]
