According to the Levada Center’s latest public opinion poll, President Vladimir Putin’s approval rating is at an all-time high of 89%, 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. UPDATES BELOW Russia This Week: […]
Staunton, May 21 — No nation more skillfully used an international event than did the Circassians during the Sochi Olympiad to call attention to the Russian-orchestrated genocide of their people 150 years earlier. Despite Moscow’s best efforts, few independent reporters talked about Sochi without talking about the continuing crimes against the Circassians. In the past […]
As can be expected, there is a wide range of theories now being published and discussed about the possible forces behind the assassination of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was gunned down February 27, two days before he was to lead a protest march against the Russian government’s war on Ukraine and its anti-crisis measures. […]
Staunton, October 29 – Vladimir Putin’s nuclear bluster reflects his conviction that the world is still as it was before he annexed Crimea: that Western governments will tolerate anything he says or does because their foreign policies are driven by fundamental business interests which want to make a profit in Russia, according to Mikhail Fishman. […]
Staunton, October 28 – Moscow political commentator Stanislav Belkovsky says that Vladimir Putin has changed the nature of his “pact” with the majority of the Russian population and that unlike his old one, his new agreement requires that the United States be “the main enemy” just as it was in Soviet times. In a comment […]
Updated Daily. This week’s issue: – Ruble Falls To Record Low After Prosecutors Confirm Lawsuit to Nationalize Bashneft – What is Yevtushenkov’s Relationship to Support for Russian-Backed Separatists in Ukraine? – Prosecutor Demands Return of Bashneft Shares to State; Yevtushenkov To Remain Under House Arrest – Russians Polled Find Putin ‘Most Moral’ Figure; But Some […]
Staunton, August 21 – Photographer Aleksandr Belensky has documented what many observers feared: despite spending more than 50 billion US dollars on the Sochi Olympics, Vladimir Putin has left Sochi not the vital place he promised but a ghost town where there are almost no tourists and where much of the infrastructure is already decaying. […]
Staunton, 2 June – In a classic example of how international attention can restrain Russian officials and how the end of such attention frees them to resume what they were doing, an animal rights activist reports that Sochi officials have restarted their campaign to kill homeless animals since Western journalists left following the Olympiad. Tatyana […]
Staunton, March 30 – A serious consequence of a crisis like the ongoing one in Ukraine is that it absorbs so much media space that little or none is left for other events and developments, creating a situation that may benefit some and harm others, even when no overt falsification of the news is involved. […]
Staunton, March 28 – Former Russian finance minister Alexei Kudrin has said and official Russian news agencies have reported that that Russia’s annexation of Crimea is going to have extremely deleterious effects on the Russian economy, including massive capital flight, and any hope of real economic growth this year. Kudrin said yesterday that Russia will […]
