RFE/RL Russia Report
6/20/2011 10:25:12 PM
A review of RFE/RL reporting and analysis about domestic and foreign-policy developments in Russia.
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Yelena Bonner: 'It Is Time To Say Goodbye'
It often happens that even when you try to prepare yourself for something tragic and inevitable, you find yourself completely unprepared when it actually occurs. That is what happened to me when I heard the news of the passing of Yelena Bonner. More Prominent Soviet-era Russian dissident Yelena Bonner passed away on June 18 at the age of 88. Following a memorial service in the United States, Bonner will be buried alongside her husband and parents in Moscow's Vostryakovskoye Cemetery. More An associate of ousted Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiev's son who was arrested in Moscow last week has reportedly been released while his extradition to Kyrgyzstan is being considered. More The municipal authorities in central Russia have launched an investigation into a fight this week between several migrant workers from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. More Armenian officials say Russian energy companies have pledged to invest a total of 26.7 billion drams ($71.2 million) in the natural gas and electricity distribution networks they own in Armenia in 2011. More More Picture this: Vladimir Putin, the most powerful man in Russia, lets his eye wander in the direction of a volumptuous, plump-lipped former Miss Moscow participant. More On this week's show, the deepening financial crisis in Belarus, an interview with U.S. President Barack Obama's top Russia adviser, and a Chicago cab driver who sings for his fares -- in Uzbek. More Moscow appears to shift gears in the battle against racism with the launch of a new anti-xenophobia program. Is the new mayor really ready to take on racism? More On June 9, three dead soldiers were found in a fuel tanker at the military unit in Kinel, which is in Samara Oblast. It is unclear how the soldiers' bodies ended up in the tanker. The bodies have been sent for forensic examination. More A major leader of ultranationalist groups in St. Petersburg and another member have been sentenced to life imprisonment for their roles in a series of murders of foreigners. More In an interview with RFE/RL, U.S. President Barack Obama's top Russia adviser, Michael McFaul, gives his take on the latest session of the U.S.-Russia dialogue on human rights in Washington earlier this month. More The Primorye regional court in Vladivostok ruled that five local men -- two of them former policemen -- killed seven people in order to illegally gain possession of their homes. More Memorial Human Rights Center leader Oleg Orlov has been found not guilty of insulting Chechen Republic head Ramzan Kadyrov. More Title sounds far-fetched, eh? But that is what a broadcast on Russia's "Kommersant FM" radio said on June 14. The radio station interviewed Sergei Zatsepilov, the general director of the "For a Just Foreign Policy" center. More |