 RFE/RL Russia Report 12/10/2009 5:10:17 PM A review of RFE/RL reporting and analysis about domestic and foreign-policy developments in Russia.For more stories on Russia, please visit and bookmark our Russia page . |
 Up In Smoke: Russia's Tobacco 'Epidemic' Hundreds of thousands of Russians die each year from smoking-related illnesses. But as more people drop the habit in Western countries, Russia is becoming an increasingly important market for international tobacco companies. More  A 'Functioning' System During his November 12 Address to the Federal Assembly, President Dmitry Medvedev devoted an entire section to the window-dressing of Russia’s managed democracy. True, the section came way down in the speech, far below bits on “innovation” and “modernization.” In fact, talk about the country’s fake political system ranked above only other such embarrassing topics as reforming the police and military and instability in the North Caucasus (about the latter, Medvedev said he considers it “our most serious domestic political problem,” making it hard to understand why he took nearly 10,000 words to get around to it). More  Slain Ingushetian Activist Given U.S. Human Rights Award The U.S. State Department's annual Human Rights Defenders Award has been given posthumously to Ingushetian human rights activist Maksharip Aushev. More  Georgia's Afghan 'Surge' With nearly 1,000 troops committed, what is the tiny South Caucasus country getting in return? More  Abkhazia Increasingly Polarized On Eve Of Presidential Ballot A journalist for "Der Spiegel" who visited Abkhazia this summer observed that "the Abkhazians are assembling a state with the same level of seriousness and the same irritating attention to detail with which amateur craftsmen build matchstick replicas of the Eiffel Tower." But perhaps inevitably, Abkhazia's first elections since the republic was formally recognized as an independent state by Russia last year are not proceeding in line with the rulebook for a fair and democratic ballot. More A prominent human rights activist was found dead today in the central Russian city of Kemerovo, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports. More  Russian Police Search Activists' Flats The Moscow apartments of opposition activists Aleksandr Averin and Sergei Fomchenkov were searched by police, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports. More Police and security forces have killed three insurgents in the North Caucasus town of Ust-Dzheguta, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports. More  Kalashnikov In The Kremlin RFE/RL’s Russian Service has been reporting steadily in recent weeks about the inroads that a certain Maksim Kalashnikov has been making in getting his views on Russia’s political situation to the highest levels in the Kremlin. In October, at the personal request of President Dmitry Medvedev, Kalashnikov laid out his ideas in a long meeting with presidential chief of staff Sergei Sobyanin. Sobyanin later said he had forwarded Kalashnikov’s ideas to the Russian Academy of Sciences for its recommendation. More  WHO Announces 'Very Good News' On Cures For the past 15 years, the UN's World Health Organization (WHO) has been focusing on tuberculosis, or TB, with a goal of curing people already infected and eventually eradicating the disease. The organization says new data shows it has exceeded that goal. More  Peter Vail, Veteran RFE/RL Broadcaster, Accomplished Author, Dies At 60 Peter Vail, a longtime pillar of RFE/RL's Russian Service, died late on December 7 in Prague following a long illness. He was 60 years old. A distinguished author and journalist, Vail worked for more than 20 years in RFE/RL's Russian Service. More  Russia, U.S. Face Off In Court Over Independence The United States and Russia, deeply divided over the legality of Kosovo's declaration of independence, have presented opposing arguments about the move to the International Court of Justice. More More than 300 pensioners in the midwestern Russian city of Izhevsk demonstrated today against the decision to abolish reduced fares for senior citizens on public transport, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports. More Police and security forces in Makhachkala, the capital of the Russian republic of Daghestan, reported killing an armed insurgent after he resisted arrest today, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports. More  Climategate: A Russian Connection? Was the so-called "climategate" scandal initiated by the Russian security services? Some British media are suggesting it may have been. More  Another Circassian Activist Assaulted, Beaten In Nalchik More  Post-Soviet Woes And A Climate Of Fear How do threats from global warming stack up among countries of the former Soviet Union? Could past environmental ills prove to be that region's undoing? More  Russia's Perm Mourns, Anger Voiced After Club Fire Perm residents have gathered at the central morgue on a bitter cold Siberian to identify the dead after a December 5 nightclub fire and express outrage over safety standards they blame for causing 110 deaths. More  A New Russian History That's Sensational For The Right Reasons "A History Of Russia: The 20th Century" is a rare book that rejects the traditional depiction of Russia as the invariable victim of foreign aggression, and deals with its past without colored glasses. More  Racist Violence Decreasing In Russia, But Watchdogs Wary Crime-watchers say racist violence in Russia has fallen sharply over the past year. But even with the decline, the incidence of hate crimes still remains shockingly high. Experts caution that the lull in violence could signal a shift in tactics by ultranationalist groups. More  Death Of A Beloved Double Agent The world has lost a true Soviet hero. Vyacheslav Tikhonov, the Russian actor who indelibly portrayed perhaps the greatest of all fictional Soviet spies, Stirlitz, died today in Moscow at the age of 81. More  NATO, Russia Paper Over Differences NATO foreign ministers have met their Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, for the first time since the Russian-Georgian war in August 2008. But NATO appeared to give the cold shoulder to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, saying his recent proposals for a new European security treaty should be discussed not within the alliance, but within the OSCE. More  Tajik Wrongly Jailed In Russia Finds Justice In Strasbourg Rahmatullo Nazarov, a 29-year-old Tajik citizen who spent three years behind bars in Russia on drug-related charges, was recently awarded 18,500 euros ($27,000) in compensation by the European Court of Human Rights. The Strasbourg-based court ruled in favor of his complaint that he was treated inhumanely during his detention. More  Who Will Be Daghestan's Next President? The political situation in Daghestan is arguably both more complex, and more difficult to comprehend, than that in any other federation subject. That complexity derives less from the ongoing battle against the Islamic resistance than from the constant jockeying for power and influence among and within the largest of the republic's 14 titular nationalities. More  U.S. And Russian START Talks Continue As Deadline Looms U.S. and Russian negotiators are not likely to have a new START treaty ready before the existing Cold War-era arms accord expires at midnight. But both sides are expressing optimism that a new nuclear arms reduction pact will be signed soon. More In recent weeks, unofficial youth groups that claim to defend Circassian national interests have incurred the wrath of the republican authorities in both Kabardino-Balkaria, and in neighboring Karachayevo-Cherkessia. A confrontation may be imminent in Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkaria, where the municipal authorities have asked Circassians to postpone a rally. More  Was Putin Shielded From Inconvenient Questions? Three people with keen interest in the deadly accident at Russia's Sayano-Shushenskaya hydropower station believe they were intentionally prevented from asking Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin questions about the station during his annual televised call-in show on December 3, RFE/RL's Russian Service reports. More  A Famous Soviet Symbol Revived Even if a hand holding a hammer didn’t jut out from behind a veil, there was no mistaking the monumental statue of the worker and the collective farmer, newly restored and 50 meters in the air as it waited to be revealed today. More  The Tandem Two-Step Half of Russia's ruling tandem was in Moscow and the other half was in Rome. But the geographic distance wasn't enough to prevent a cross border conversation between President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and about which of them will occupy the Kremlin after 2012. More  Russia Pushes European Security Proposal Russia is meeting with NATO after threatening to cancel the talks over what it said was the alliance's refusal to consider Moscow's proposal for a new European security structure. The Kremlin is calling for a new agreement to replace precisely such institutions as NATO. Is Moscow's plan aimed at updating Cold War-era arrangements or at undermining Western organizations? More  Sochi Rising It's only 1528 days to the Sochi Winter Olympics and they've just launched their new logo and brand. More  Live From Moscow, It's The Putin Show! It's that time of year again -- time for Vladimir Putin's annual live question and answer session with carefully screened and perfectly vetted ordinary citizens. More  The Suspicious Death Of Russian Journalist Olga Kotovskaya The International Press Institute (IPI) is drawing attention to the death of Kaliningrad-based broadcast journalist Olga Kotovskaya. More  Cops Gone Wild When the nation's top law-enforcement official starts sounding a bit like a wild-eyed anarchist, you know something must be up. Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev says citizens should be allowed to strike back at police who attack them without cause. Moreover, a leading lawmaker has suggested disbanding the police and starting over. More |
