Blogging the democratic revolution
Yesterday, Estonia held its national parliamentary election. Prime Minister Andrus Ansip’s Reform Party increased its position from 19 to 31 seats in the 101-seat parliament, while their coalition partner in the previous government, the Centre Party, gained one seat to move to 29. The Union of Pro Patria and Res Publica holds 19 seats, the…
Last week, we informed readers about aggressive efforts by and on behalf of Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin to punish Internet scribes who dare to criticize the Moscow regime with brutal personal attacks. In other words, demand-side pressure on Kremlin critics. The ultimate expression of this strategy was the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, though for sheer malignant,…
In September of last year, a the Russian human rights organization “Gulag” published a lengthy treatise on efforts of Vladmir Putin’s secret police to seize control of the Internet by using a cadre of “brigadniki” thugs to harrass anyone who dared to express opinions critical of the Kremlin. The lead of the piece, Anna Polyanskaya,…
In a ruling more than a decade in the making, whose length is so long that most people will only ever read the summary, the International Court of Justice in the Hague has decided that Serbia can not be held directly responsible for ethnic cleansing and genocide that occurred during the war in Bosnia, but…
If there’s one thing we seasoned Russia-watchers who have spent considerable time “in country” really really cannot stand (no matter whether we be Russophobe or Russophile, we can always reach perfect agreement on this), it’s when someone who hasn’t spent real time at ground zero starts pontificating his “insights” about the place, especially about what…
Speaking before an annual conference on international security in Munich recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin said this of the concept of “unilateralism” in an attempt to complain about the allegedly hegemonic position of the U.S. in the world today: It is world in which there is one master, one sovereign. And at the end of…
Do you recognize the gentleman in the foreground? Unless you are an avid follower of Russian politics, you may not. He’s Sergei Mironov, a high-ranking figure in the Kremlin’s power structure. He’s the leader of the “Russia of Justice” political party (a sham entity subservient to the Kremlin) and the Chairman of the Federation Council,…
Over the past six months, and especially since Russia cut off the flow of natural gas through Belarus, tensions between the two countries’ political elites has been at a divisive high. Belarus had to give up a majority stake in its Beltranshaz pipeline system or face a huge increase in gas prices. As we described…
Breaking news – Russia’s elite spetznaz goons uses poisoned Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko’s photo at the center of their targets during shooting practice. The Times of London has the story here. But they’re still denying that they had anything to do with killing Litvinenko. My my, how hollow their elaborate protestations of noninvolvement in Litvinenko’s…
On October 13, 2006, Human Rights Watch reported on a Russian trial court’s ordering the closure of an organization based in the Russian city of Nizhny Novogorod and known as the “Russian-Chechen Friendship Association.” The RCFA is a nongovernmental organization established by Russians to inform the public about the dire plight of Chechnya and Russian…
You know the story so far: Russia suddenly drops an oil price bomb on impoverished Belarus, dramatically increasing the price Belarussians are charged because the country was insufficiently slavish in its obedience of the Kremlin, and Belarus responds with a massive tax on Russia’s Belarus oil pipeline transits to Europe, whereupon Russia threatens to cut…
The first parliamentary elections since the devolution of Serbia-Montenegro into their own respective countries took place in Serbia on Sunday. Ultra-nationalist Radical Party took home the most votes of any party, with just less than 30% of the vote, but the victory will go to the many Western-oriented, democratically minded parties who will hopefully be…
The Russian media has challenged the Putin regime’s peculiarly atavistic style of governance – its standing practice of rule through murder. Kim Zigfeld at La Russophobe has professionally translated a long and insightful piece from Novaya Gazeta called ‘Spare Organs’ on the Kremlin’s ruling killers. If you follow Russia affairs, it well worth a look…
Aussie Girl, the lovely writer of Ukraine affairs at Ultima Thule, including her wonderful coverage of the Orange Revolution, has died this weekend of cancer. She was only 59. She was one of the sunniest and most insightful presences on the Internet. She was also one of the best bloggers – sharp, to the point…
On Sunday December 3rd, the British newspaper The Observer published three stories about Alexander Litvinenko (pictured above right with slain hero reporter Anna Politkovskaya and Chechen rebel leader in exile Akhmed Zakayev in London a few weeks before Politkovskaya’s murder — eerily, the Chechen is the only one still alive). All three stories were based…
ON DANIEL TREISMAN AND HIS “NORMAL COUNTRY” . . . AND WHETHER PIGS HAVE WINGS The Walrus and the Carpenter walked on a mile or so, And then they rested on a rock, conveniently low: And all the little Oysters stood and waited in a row. “The time has come,” the Walrus said, “to talk…
Just over a year ago, Russia cut off natural gas supplies to Ukraine due to a standoff over whether the country would pay full “market price” over the subsidies that it had been receiving. Consequently, given that a large amount of Western Europe’s gas flows through Ukraine’s pipelines, there were a lot of German and…
In a December 6th installment of his column ???????Subjective Evaluation??????? for National Interest, Russia scholar Dmitri Simes of the Nixon Center purports to critique ???????highly simplistic and sometimes even misleading coverage??????? of the murder of Alexander Litvinenko. Simes argues that although Litvinenko was an employee of the FSB (successor to the KGB) is not appropriate…
RIA Novosti recently reported that from January through September of this year Russia received about $17.4 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) and slightly more, about $17.9 billion, in the form of international financial organizations’ loans and trade credits. At about $2 billion per month, we can project that Russia will have no more than…
When KGB spy Yuri Andropov (pictured above) expired as leader of the USSR after only sixteen months in office, the West breathed a sigh of relief. Power passed from the first KGB spy to rule Russia into the hands of Mikhail Gorbachev, who seemed far less threatening (even though he was a close associate of…
Venezuela and Russia show remarkable similarities in their social, political and economic systems and levels of attainment, so it is perhaps not surprising to see their two tinpot leaders, Vladimir Putin and Hugo Chavez, seeking ever closer relations. An even more disturbing parallel, though, is that in both countries men who are essentially dictators have…
Just as we saw after the killing of Anna Politkovskaya, a determined attempt to deflect blame from the Kremlin has issued from the Russophile cabal following the killing of Alexander Litvinenko. It????????s necessary to debunk their ???????arguments,??????? which might mislead the unwary. As a preface, let????????s ask the Russophiles a question: OK, so you don????????t…
On September 8, 1999, several hundred pounds of explosive detonated on the ground floor of a nine-story apartment building in the southwestern Moscow neighborhood of Pechatniki. 94 people were killed and 150 wounded. Five days later, a second building was leveled, this time on Kashirskoye Highway, again in the southern region of the city. In…
In his memoirs, Ernest Hemingway wrote: “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” The Russian variant would be just a bit different: ???????If you are lucky enough to…
Poisoned Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko on his deathbead Source: Kim Zigfeld, at La Russophobe In his defiant last statement, poisoned Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko said, “The bastards got me. But they won’t get everybody.” Incredibly brave words for a man going down in lingering pain from a now-unknown poison. Less than a week ago, Alexander…