LIVE UPDATES: Vitaly Ruvinsky, editor-in-chief of the web site of Ekho Moskvy, described as the last independent radio in Russia was summoned to the Federal Security Service (FSB) for questioning. Welcome to our column, Russia Update, where we will be closely following day-to-day developments in Russia, including the Russian government’s foreign and domestic policies. The […]
Moscow Struggling to Coordinate Counter-Terrorist Effort in North Caucasus 2016-01-02 21:09:16 Staunton, VA, January 2, 2016 — Moscow is finding it increasingly difficult to coordinate the various agencies involved in its counter-terrorist effort in the North Caucasus, and its shortcomings in that regard are “being paid for by the blood” of local residents, according to Rasul […]
Live Updates: Three armed militants who reportedly resisted law-enforcement officers were shot dead in the North Caucasus republic of Kabardino-Balkaria this morning, including one said to have trained in Syria. Welcome to our column, Russia Update, where we will be closely following day-to-day developments in Russia, including the Russian government’s foreign and domestic policies. The […]
Welcome to our column, Russia Update, where we will be closely following day-to-day developments in Russia, including the Russian government’s foreign and domestic policies. The previous issue is here. After President Vladimir Putin attended the annual meeting of the Prosecutor General, the Prosecutor requested immunity be removed from MP Ilya Ponomarev, and that Jen Psaki […]
Welcome to our column, Russia Update, where we will be closely following day-to-day developments in Russia, including the Russian government’s foreign and domestic policies. The previous issue is here, and see also our Russia This Week stories Ultranationalists Angry over ‘Capitulation’ of Minsk Agreement, ‘Anti-Maidan’ Launched by Nationalists, Cossacks, Veterans, Bikers, The Guild War – […]
Staunton, February 18 – The head of the FSB in Crimea says that “anti-Russian risings do not yet threaten” the peninsula but that Western intelligence services are creating the basis for them, a claim that the Russian security services are likely to invoke as justification for a sweeping new crackdown. And one commentator with whom […]
Staunton, June 7 – In yet another example of the Kremlin’s shamelessness about its plans to use its power across the former Soviet space in what constitutes an updated but geographically smaller Brezhnev doctrine, FSB head Aleksandr Bortnikov says his agency will react quickly and harshly to any attempt to overthrow existing regimes in the […]
This week, The Interpreter has translated the story of the ‘Slavonic Corps,’ a group of Russian mercenaries recruited in St. Petersburg to go and fight against Syrian rebels. The initial investigation by the St. Petersburg newspaper Fontanka concluded that a private military contractor, Moran Security Group, hired the Hong Kong ‘Slavonic Corps’ to assist the Assad regime in […]
Guarantees of privacy and secrecy of correspondence are becoming more elusive. The Federal Security Service (FSB) intends to require providers to install new equipment for comprehensive monitoring of Internet traffic and email correspondence. From the draft joint order by the FSB and the Ministry of Communications, published on the ministry’s website, it is clear that […]
Yevgenia Albats is a Russian investigative journalist who worked for the Newsweek International in the late 1990s. She is the chief editor of The New Times. – Ed. September 30, 2013 will go down in history. On this day, President Putin signed decrees №№ 739-742, increasing by 2-2.5 times the monetary remuneration (salary plus bonuses) of […]
