What’s wrong with the Russian opposition?
Everyone (except the AP) agreed that yesterday’s long awaited protest march in Moscow failed to inspire. The LA Times described how
Only 20,000 people at most had shown up for a litany of somewhat listless chants, speeches and songs against …
Recent public opinion polls in Russia showed that an approval rating for the Russian President Vladimir Putin fell to its lowest level since December 2011, when thousands rallied against parliamentary election fraud, chanting “Putin should go.” In the meantime, the share of those who hold negative outlook of …
So now we know for sure: Putin “enjoys events involving the participation of fauna” (his own words).
The whole world has seen the Russian president swanning around (he he, see what I did there?) on his ultralight, pursued by just two disorientated looking cranes.
The spectacle was …
In this week’s shameless FPA self-promotion, my piece about Pussy Riot somehow infiltrated today’s International Herald Tribune and got a few angry looks.
So, is it hypocritical for Western mainstream media to champion a group of anarchist feminists over in Russia for behaviour that it …
Four years after the Russian-Georgian war of 2008, the event is back in the news, in Russia if not here. Moreover, it appears to be tied to a power struggle, and the news also resurrects old questions about exactly how that war started.
Understanding the precise order of events is key …
These days, the anachronism of the U.N. Security Council has long been taken for granted. After all, the world has moved on a bit from 60 years ago when four European counties and China called the shots.
Or has it?
Of the five top gold medal winners in …
My last post on Pussy Riot received a thought-provoking comment from a reader.
John was disgusted at the ‘perennial “whataboutism” that pervades [my] Russophilic interpretation of the Pussy Riot action’.
But what about whataboutism? And what is it, really? According to the …
A few months ago, few Americans had heard of Pussy Riot, the feminist punk band turned latest icon of the anti-Putin opposition. That’s because the band was known under a different name in the US press: ‘P***y Riot’.
In an amusing …
Just what is Bill Browder really playing at?
After the high-flying American investment banker was ousted from Russia in 2005, his lawyer Sergey Magnitsky was killed in police custody four years later. It is said that Magnitsky earned his Steve Biko-like death after the lawyer, investigating the authorities’ …
Isn’t it ironic? On the same day that Putin signed Russia’s official accession into the world economy, he also signed a law essentially labelling NGO workers foreign agents. As the country edges another step closer to western economics, it slips further from …
As Russia vetoed a Western-backed UN resolution imposing non-military sanctions on Syria as “unilateral” and directed only against the regime, it once again demonstrated that its position on the Syrian crisis remains unchanged, emphasizing its split with the West. The repetitive pattern of the Kremlin’s refusal to pressure regime change …
As Russia counts its dead from yet another summer tragedy, investigations continue into how flooding had killed 171 in Krymsk, near the Black Sea. “A system to warn the residents was set up,” confessed Emergency Minister Vladimir Puchkov yesterday, “but, unfortunately, not everyone was warned early enough.” The regional governor …
For all his “democratic shortcomings”, there is one very “Western” thing about Vladimir Putin: he is the most pro-Israeli Russian ruler since Stalin (for all his anti-Semitism, Koba the Dread actually supported founding the Jewish state, and the US and USSR were the …
Admittedly, it’s not all doom and gloom coming out of Russia.
I mean, look on the bright side. Chief Federal Prosecutor Aleksandr I. Bastrykin is really sorry for driving an opposition journalist into the woods, threatening to kill him, and joking that he himself would lead the …
What’s going on with Russia? Yesterday, the country celebrated independence (from itself), the opposition marchers defied the new draconian laws without any reply from the police, football fans roughed up Warsaw before a draw with Poland, maybe some attack helicopters were …
