Sep

30

Zhirinovsky Pays for Outburst

September 30, 2008 | 4 Comments

Oh, how the times have passed!  It seems like only yesterday that the Russian Presidential elections were in full predictable swing. Dmitri Medvedev was set to be President of all Russia.  Operation Successor was all coming together without a hitch.
This is not to say that there wasn’t any excitement in this rather dull political ritual.  [...]

Popularity: 7% [?]

Sep

27

Russia Gets Lead Question in US Presidential Debate

September 27, 2008 | 167 Comments

Last night’s Obama-McCain Presidential debate was devoid of surprises.  Even Russia had a place.  Given “Russia’s resurgence” as they like to say in the news, it becoming a brief focus of the debate isn’t even novel.  Before getting to that here of some of my general impressions about last night’s performance.
I’ve struggled to come up [...]

Popularity: 13% [?]

Sep

25

Nevsky is the Name of Russia

September 25, 2008 | 74 Comments

The Name of Russia votes are in.  The project, which started on June 12, allowed voters to decide who are the most important political, cultural, and historical figures. According to the Name of Russia website, 44,569,665 people voted.  Here are the top ten Heroes of Russia:
1. Aleksandr Nevsky 2,011,766 votes.
The great Novgorodian prince who successfully [...]

Popularity: 9% [?]

Sep

23

Politkovskaya Case Will Soon Go to Court

September 23, 2008 | 72 Comments

The state newspaper Rossiiskaya gazeta announced yesterday that the Anna Politkovskaya murder case will soon go to court.
An official representative from the Investigation Committee saidthat charges have been made against three people: Sergei Khadzhikurbanov (he bought the murder weapon), and Dzhabrail and Ibrahim Makhmudov (they were accomplices).  Former FSB agent Pavel Riaguzov, who is accused [...]

Popularity: 6% [?]

Sep

23

Portraits of Power

September 23, 2008 | 74 Comments

Medvedev and Putin looking Presidential

Dmitri Medvedev is not just President of Russia. Nor is he simply a rising global interlocutor. He, or really his visage, is also the subject to the whims of the marketplace. According to Kommersant Vlast,
People are even trying to sell the portrait of the President of Russia using spam.  Evidently, the [...]

Popularity: 6% [?]

Sep

22

Will the Russian Economic Crisis Create a Political One?

September 22, 2008 | 28 Comments

Moscow’s stock market soared almost 30 percent on Friday thanks to the Russian government announcement it would dump about $130 billion into the sagging market.  Today, it injected more credit into the market just to make sure.  About $24 billion worth at 8.75 percent interest.  The move was to disperse more capital among banks pushed [...]

Popularity: 5% [?]

Sep

18

Rice scolds Russia. Will anyone care?

September 18, 2008 | 126 Comments

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been on a whirlwind press junket scold Russia.  Here is a clip of her rhetorical spanking at the German Marshall Fund:

Unfortunately, the clip cuts off right when she was going to enlighten us on how Russia of the 1990s became Russia of today.  Too bad.  Surprisingly what she [...]

Popularity: 7% [?]

Sep

17

Anatol Lieven: “What is in fact better: authoritarian control from above or mass hysteria from below”?

September 17, 2008 | 269 Comments

Anatol Lieven’s “Lunch with Putin” deserves much thought and serious discussion.  Here are his impressions from last week’s Valdai Discussion Club:
[T]here was another way in which the world seemed to revolve backward during the Valdai, which was if anything even more disturbing. During two lunches over the course of the conference, the president and prime [...]

Popularity: 8% [?]

Sep

17

“Who’s on first, what’s on second, and I don’t know’s on third”

September 17, 2008 | 17 Comments

The New York Times has published the transcripts of Georgia’s “evidence” that Russia started the war.  You can even get your own .pdf version to share with your friends!  As for the whether this transcript amounts to any evidence at all, I leave that to you.
What these recordings say to me is that this so-called [...]

Popularity: 8% [?]

Sep

16

Georgia’s New “Evidence”

September 16, 2008 | 106 Comments

Georgia’s latest attempt to convince the world that the Russians started the war is a sad sign of desperation. In a continued effort to dupe the world, and particularly the United States, the Georgian government has provided American and European intelligence agencies with audio intercepts of Russian military maneuvers before the outbreak of war.  The [...]

Popularity: 22% [?]

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