11 Dec 2011
The first of possibly several waves of mass demonstrations has swept Russia. Yesterday, a crowd maybe as big as one-hundred thousand people gathered in downtown Moscow to protest voter fraud in the December 4th parliamentary elections. The big question now is: where does Russia go from here? For most observers on the ground, there is [...]
6 Dec 2011
The votes are in, the violations are online, and Moscow’s oppositionists are out on the streets, gathered at dawn in Kitai Gorod, chanting at cops to release their most beloved celebrity, Aleksei Navalny. Russia’s best known activist-blogger found himself in police custody earlier tonight, when Sunday’s parliamentary election results confirmed for many that the authorities [...]
20 Nov 2011
“If an authoritarian regime can crumble under the pressure of a Facebook group, whether its members are protesting online or in the streets, it’s not much of an authoritarian regime. The real effects of digital activism would thus most likely be felt only in the long term rather than immediately.” This is what Evgeny Morozov, [...]
29 Sep 2011
Are Russia-watchers guilty of over-thinking or over-hoping? Sam Greene claims to have been the “last analyst left in Moscow who actually thought that Dmitri Medvedev would stay on as president of Russia,” but this is hyperbole. Analysts as talented as Stanislav Belkovsky, Igor Yurgens, and Gleb Pavlovsky (to name just a few) were also in [...]
27 Sep 2011
In light of Aleksei Kudrin’s departure from the Ministry of Finance yesterday, I’m posting this follow-up to my initial thoughts about Russia after Putin’s return. Before Medvedev spit hellfire and brimstone at Kudrin on Monday, Igor Shuvalov seemed convinced that Russia’s long-time Finance Minister would be migrating from the ‘government’ to the ‘Kremlin,’ just as [...]
25 Sep 2011
The eternal, hotly-debated question about whether or not Vladimir Putin will return to the Kremlin was answered yesterday in the affirmative. None other than Dmitri Medvedev made the announcement, minutes before Putin returned to the stage at the United Russia party convention to deliver what was essentially an early victory speech. There is much to [...]
13 Sep 2011
On September 8th, Russia’s two most prominent Dimas (President Medvedev and Representative to NATO Rogozin) both delivered speeches in Yaroslavl at the Global Policy Forum. The theme of the conference was “The Modern State in the Age of Social Diversity.” Rogozin elected to take part in a talk dedicated to “Global Security and Local Conflicts.” When [...]
20 Jun 2011
On March 30, 2011, President Medvedev gave a speech in Magnitogorsk, where he announced a series of executive orders aimed at improving Russia’s miserable, “bad, very bad” investment climate. In an apparent effort to reach out to business interests, Medvedev declared that social insurance payroll taxes (strakhovye vznosy) were too high, and he ordered the [...]
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