Staunton, March 9 – Vladimir Putin’s plans to amalgamate smaller non-Russian federal subjects with larger and predominantly ethnic Russian regions, plans that have been on hold since 2008, is being challenged by a Perm activist who wants the Russian Supreme Court to overturn the inclusion of Komi-Permyak Autonomous Province into the new Perm region. The […]
Staunton, March 5 – On the 62 anniversary of his death today, Stalin continues to cast an ever darker shadow over Russia, sparking debates about how he should best be remembered. But beyond these symbols, the influence of Stalin on the thinking of Vladimir Putin and his regime is increasingly obvious and strong, as Moscow […]
Staunton, January 5 – Following Vladimir Putin, who suggested Viktor Yanukovych was overthrown by a clutch of “nationalists, neo-Nazis, Russophobes, and anti-Semites,” commentators in Russia and sometimes in the West suggested that anti-Semitism was widespread in Ukraine. Indeed, they have made it a major theme in their presentations. But Boris Vishnevsky, a Yabloko deputy in […]
Staunton, January 5 – Three Russian experts with whom Russkaya Planeta spoke say that while declines in the standard of living of many Russians in the coming year as a result of the economic crisis may lead to some protests about economic issues, any such demonstrations are unlikely to focus on high politics. On the […]
Staunton, October 31 – The situation of Kaliningrad, the non-contiguous part of the Russian Federation, has long been “a headache” for the Kremlin, but the recent rise in East-West tensions has so exacerbated the problems of that region that this week Vladimir Putin convened a meeting to discuss what should be done. According to Nezavisimaya […]
Updated Daily. Prime Minister Medvedev’s Twitter account was hacked with a claim he was resigning in shame and protests against the Crimean annexation and robbing of pensions to pay cost of forcible annexation. Following confusion and wishful thinking that new regulations regarding Internet access will not be so restrictive, Russia’s Minister of Communications clarifies that […]
Staunton, June 8 – Russia “at the present stage” should dispense with the office of prime minister since the president in fact makes all the key decisions, according to a Moscow commentator. Such a step would not only reduce costs by eliminating duplication in the bureaucracy but also end what has become “unique” kind of […]
Staunton, April 7 One of the consequences of the propaganda campaign against Kyiv that has accompanied Vladimir Putin’s Anschluss of Crimea and moves elsewhere in Ukraine is that it has displaced the anti-Caucasus theme in the Russian media that had so animated Russians until very recently, according to Ruslan Kurbanov. On the one hand, this […]
Staunton, April 5 – Moscow’s occupation and annexation has already had many consequences, but one that is extremely important but that has not attracted much attention is the extent to which Crimea’s “transfer” from Ukraine to the Russian Federation threatens the fragile environment of the peninsula. That is because, as Andrey Ozharovsky of the environmental […]
Staunton, April 2 – Vladimir Putin is driven less by the “imperial syndrome” some are pointing to than by his own sense of the weakness as a result of his continuing reliance on the export of natural resources and his opposition to “the internal West” which wants Russia to modernize, according to Kirill Rogov. As […]
