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 story The Guild War – How Should Journalists Treat Russian State Propagandists? and special features ‘Managed Spring’: How Moscow […]
Staunton, August 14 – Since his rise to power, many of Vladimir Putin’s actions have been constant, but over the last two years, he has carried out a revolution from above, expelling from the political center the moderate liberals and moderate conservatives who agreed on the need for reform and replaced them with figures earlier […]
Updated Daily. Pussy Riot went to Washington to lobby for additions to the Magnitsky List of Russian official human rights violators. 6 May was the second anniversary of a major opposition demonstration in 2012 in Moscow, where dozens were arrested in clashes with police that activists say were staged by provocateurs. Police detained 13 today […]
Updated Daily. A professor who compared Putin’s forcible annexation of the Crimea was fired from his position, but then later re-instated after protests. But for how long? Meanwhile, bloggers face new challenges as conservative legislators seek to equate bloggers with media outlets under the restrictive Russian press law. Go here, here, and here for past […]
Russians continue to protest the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, and suffer backlash themselves. Cases of those arrested last week in solidarity with the sentenced defendants in the Bolotnaya Case continue to be processed. Some of those who protested during the Sochi Olympics last month, such as the Circassians, are still suffering the consequences. And the […]
The Sochi Games are over, and international media attention is focused on developments in Ukraine. So without wasting a moment, the Russian government has returned to its more favored past time: arresting members of the opposition. Today, prominent dissidents, such as Alexey Navalny and Maria Alyokhina and Nadya Tolokonnikova, both formerly of Pussy Riot fame, […]
In the midst of the closing ceremonies of the Sochi Winter Olympics, and the crisis in Ukraine which has now toppled the Yanukovych government, a Russian court handed down sentences to the defendants in the Bolotnaya protest trial who had been found guilty last week. The result comes as no surprise to defence lawyer, Sergei […]
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, along with several other performers, activists and journalists, have been attacked by Cossack paramilitary police while attempting a protest performance in Sochi this afternoon (RT has removed their video so we have replaced it with video from the Associated Press). The group attempted once again, having been detained yesterday, to […]
Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot have been detained in Sochi while preparing for a demonstration. They have been detained as suspects for a “theft” in their hotel. The two were planning to perform a song called Putin Will Teach You To Love Your Motherland but were arrested “with force” along with several other […]
Today or tomorrow, Platon Lebedev will be released [note – there are reports he was released Friday afternoon, after this article was published — Ed.]. It was decided by the Supreme Court as the result of hearings on the two “Yukos” cases. A month ago Platon Lebedev spoke about his upcoming release in an interview […]
