Posted by Sean on March 14, 2007
There isn’t much to say about the results of Sunday’s local elections in Russia. That is except that Putin’s “managed democracy” seems to be going at full steam. The elections wielded few surprises, both in terms of results or scandals. In St. Petersburg, Yabloko found itself disqualified from the ballot. Other opposition parties claimed that they were being pushed out of the vote and that the election was turning into a “two horse race.” The horses? United Russia and Just Russia. The former is familiar to everyone. Just Russia which is the Kremlin backed opposition party falls just politically left of United Russia, “declaring its adherence to “socialism” and attacking Unified Russia for monopolizing power and representing corrupt entrenched interests.” Such declarations are just enough to siphon votes away from the dreaded Communists.
It seems to be working. Not ..read more
Posted by Sean on March 14, 2007
Theories about Alexandr Litvinenko’s death continue to swirl around the media. And while most suspect that the “fierce Kremlin critic” was assassinated by Putin or persons connected to him, another less highlighted theory is that Litvinenko might have been caught up in a polonium smuggling ring. This idea isn’t new. Russia Blog reported in December that the German newspaper Berliner Zeitung was “looking into the possibility that radiation poisoning victim Alexander Litvinenko and his associate Dimitry Kovtun were involved in smuggling polonium out of Russia.” “Alongside several other versions behind this crime,” a German police officer told the Berliner Zeitung at the time, “we are seriously considering the possibility that Litvinenko’s death could have been connected to the illegal trade in nuclear materials.” The officer then added that no clear evidence had been uncovered yet.
Now it seems that the polonium plot thickens. ..read more
