Russia

Amidst worldwide condemnation, Russia’s parliament passed a law outlawing “homosexual propaganda.”
It was definitely a shameful milestone.
As of today,
The law will make it an offence…to communicate to Russian children and young people that love between two women or two men is “just as socially valuable” as that between …

Speculation swirls around today’s sudden resignation of Vladislav Surkov, the Kremlin’s chief ideologue who had thought up “sovereign democracy” and invented the Nashi youth groups. He name-dropped Lacan and Derrida and even allegedly wrote a novel called Almost Zero. And now he might have …

As a Russian who first came to America as a small child and later spent his university years in Cambridge, Mass., I felt particularly gripped by the ongoing Boston bomber saga. There remain so many questions about why these two brothers, to whom the U.S. had given shelter, passports, schooling …

He was the original oligarch: a talented mathematician who had used his smarts and ruthlessness to amass an enormous fortune in the wreckage of the Soviet Union. Eventually, he became one of Russia’s most powerful men, a courtier to former president Boris Yeltsin.
Boris Berezovsky went on to survive assassination attempts …

They said it couldn’t be done. But at last, the Kremlin and some of its fiercest liberal critics have found themselves on the same team. The fact that the issue in question is their opposition to the proposed Cypriot bank levies says as much about the regime …

Today is 60 years since the death of Joseph Stalin. How do we know this? Well, it’s on the front page of the BBC, there’s an article in the Telegraph, Reuters, the Atlantic and pretty much everywhere else. Except Russia itself, that is, where the event hardly attracted any attention …

Is this the face of Russia’s next president?
According to a report quoted in today’s Moscow Times, Moscow mayor Sergey Sobyanin has become the favorite to succeed Putin in 2018.
Sobyanin?
“Sobyanin is a figure who could please both the main tycoons in the energy industry and those who took part in dividing the spoils inherited …

This weekend the Russian Orthodox Church held its Bishops Council at Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow.
In his speech to the assembly, president Putin said that, of course, Russia is not a theocracy but:
“We are a secular state of course, and cannot allow state life and …

“The worst thing we can do, the most dangerous thing we can do is continue to isolate nations, is to continue to not engage nations. Great powers engage.”
Foreign Policy compiled a list of “Ten Hagel Quotes You Need to Know,” including the above quote from a …

Okay, I know everyone has had enough of the Depardieu story by now, but that’s no reason to pass up an opportunity for blatant self promotion!
In today’s International Herald Tribune, I ask whether the fat Frenchman may not simply be the corporeal embodiment of modern neoliberal capitalism.
And …

As a third of young Russian graduates consider fleeing Russia for better opportunities abroad, Putin has received a welcome boost to his deadly whataboutist arsenal. An enormous, large-nosed, drunk boost. Its name? Depardieu. He may not look like 

How you usher in the new year says a lot about a country.
In the capital of capitalism, Americans huddle amidst the neon billboards of Times Square; according to wine-growing tradition, the Spanish eat a dozen grapes; Italians tuck into a stuffed pig trotter accompanied by lentils, …

Heads are rolling in Moscow.
Over the past two months, two Russian ministers and the chief of the army have lost their jobs.
The October resignation of regional development minister Oleg Govorun was but a prelude to the recent high profile ousting of the reformist defense minister Anatoly Serdyukov. The latter …

Looks like Putin’s infamous crane flight has claimed another victim.
Two months after his unauthorised sequel to Fly Away Home, which reportedly resulted in several of the endangered birds getting killed and maimed, the Russian president has mysteriously cancelled a spate …

“The more choice of different candidates there was, the better United Russia did. We’re not afraid of democracy; we need democracy”. With these words, prime minister Medvedev greeted the happy news that despite greater choice and wider opposition involvement compared to December’s parliamentary vote, UR ended its …