Sergei Guriev has spoken about his decision to flee Russia, stating frankly that he left because “I don’t want to sit in jail.” Guriev, a leading economist once very much part of the Russian establishment who wrote speeches for Dmitry Medvedev, described how the increasing pressure from investigators over a report he had authored criticizing […]
It is safe to say that publicly challenging Putin means that you may find yourself facing charges of money laundering, extortion, or the regime’s curiously esoteric understanding of hooliganism. The experiences of Pussy Riot, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and Alexei Navalny have all shown the repercussions that dissent entails. Now, however, it seems that even disagreeing with […]
Here’s a quick summary of some of today’s biggest news. -Current Moscow Mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, has stepped down and called for snap elections, despite his previous statements that he would not call for an early election. It seems a calculated move on the part of Sobyanin and the Kremlin, designed to take advantage of his […]
The late Gore Vidal once said that the three saddest words in the English language were Joyce Carol Oates. Now here are the ten saddest: “The CODEL’s visit to Chechnya was facilitated by Steven Seagal.” CODEL stands for Congressional delegation, and the speaker here is the spokeswoman for Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican from California. […]
– It seems that C-list action star Steven Seagal is now trying his hand at diplomacy. Seagal, coming off of his recent ventures helping Putin promote school physical education and posing with Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov, attempted to organize a Congressional fact-finding trip in the aftermath of the Boston bombings to the volatile republic. As […]
Here are some of the biggest Russia-focused stories from the past week: – In the wake of the Ryan Fogle spy debacle, and the endless debate on Syria, Obama and Putin have reverted to the 19th-century method of writing courier-delivered letters to each other instead of picking up a phone to discuss bilateral relations. According […]
Drawing on some of the material first translated and published at The Interpreter, I’ve made another attempt to explain why, in spite of the United States’ dogged efforts, the Kremlin is not abandoning its position on Syria — if anything, it’s digging in further. My column at NOW Lebanon this week: The United States pretends to […]
The New Times has gone to London, Moscow, Tel-Aviv and Damascus to learn about the new diplomatic duel between the Kremlin and the West, the Russian missile systems provided to Assad and its impact on regional dynamics. The talks between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian President Vladimir Putin with Russian Foreign Minister […]
Putin’s rule in Russia is based on his careful management of an institutionalized patronage system which has allowed him to navigate the “clan” factionalism of Russian business and political elites. Through unusually high commodity prices, and a 7 percent growth rate over the past decade, Putin was able to rely on large surpluses to placate […]
Last week, the Guardian’s former Moscow correspondent Luke Harding reported on the near collapse of Britain’s long-awaited and long-bedeviled inquest into the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the former FSB agent turned MI6 spy, who was brutally assassinated with a radioactive substance in London in 2006. The inquest has taken years to commence owing mainly to […]
