Staunton, October 12 – In a development that some will see as encouraging but most as an indication of more troubles ahead, the officials who handled the development of the transportation network for the Sochi Olympics have now been given the task of improving transit between the Russian Federation and Russian-occupied Crimea via the Kerch […]
Staunton, October 5 – The Ecological Watch on the North Caucasus, which attracted the attention of the Russian authorities for its exposure of Moscow’s violation of environmental legislation in advance of the Sochi Olympics, has suffered yet another attack: Last week, police in Krasnodar arrested one of its members, Tatyana Borisova. Elena Malina, a rights […]
Staunton, October 3 – Deputies of the Kabardino-Balkarian parliament have appealed to Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to include the Ubykhs, a subgroup of the Circassian nation, on the official list of numerically small indigenous peoples of the Russian Federation and thus take the first step to the revival of a language which has been […]
Updated Daily. -Kremlin advisor Sergei Glazyev speaks in Yalta, surrounded by separatists and European far right; advocates for “Novorossiya” to join Customs Union. -There was an anti-war rally in St. Petersburg. -Lev Shlosberg, Pskov deputy who investigated Pskov paratroopers’ deaths, assaulted, hospitalized; he links his attack to his investigation, and Acting Governor Turchak condemns attack. […]
Staunton, July 25 – Angered by the success Circassians had at the time of the Sochi Olympics in focusing international attention on the Russian genocide of their ancestors in 1864 and by the insistence of Circassians that their co-ethnics in war-torn Syria should be allowed to return to the North Caucasus, Moscow has adopted a […]
Staunton, July 3 – Yesterday, Izvestiya reported that Vladimir Putin has signed a law under the terms of which the government will engage in strategic planning in five-year intervals to promote “improving the standard of living of the population, the growth of the Russian economy and the guaranteeing of the security of the country”. This […]
Staunton, July 2 – The consequences of Vladimir Putin’s much-ballyhooed “Winter Olympics in the Subtropics” continue to unfold with officials cutting back on the promises they made to develop the tourism industry in the North Caucasus even as they continue to persecute those who objected to holding the competition in Sochi. Two weeks ago, Aleksandr […]
Staunton, June 10 – Apparently not satisfied simply with sending Yevgeny Vitishko to a prison camp for three years for his exposes of environmental depredation by the authorities in advance of the Sochi Olympics, the commanders of the facility where he is serving his sentence are seeking to set other prisoners against him and thus […]
Updated Daily. Building on years of Russian journalists’ reporting, Western media are now covering the Kremlin’s paid troll army, citing forums moderators’ experience, leaked documents, and local infiltrators, and uncovering how “web brigades” have been skewing public debate on Ukraine. Authorities are rounding up more suspects in the Bolotnaya Square demonstration case even two years […]
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 […]
