RFE/RL RUSSIA REPORT
11/22/2011 9:32:10 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 . |
 Medvedev Gets Caught Telling The Truth In a rare instance of truth telling, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev appeared to reveal on Monday the real reason Moscow went to war with Georgia in August 2008. More  Activist Fined, Jailed In Moscow An opposition activist has been sentenced in Moscow to seven days in jail for refusing to follow police instructions. More  Russian Newscaster Appears To Give Obama The Middle Finger On Live TV An award-winning Russian newscaster has appeared to give President Barack Obama the middle finger during a live broadcast on federal television in a potentially job-threatening blunder that has raised eyebrows all over the web. More  Russian Prison Whistle-Blower Faces Reprisals An officer at the Moscow prison where lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died in custody two years ago recently gave RFE/RL an inside account of rights violations there. Now he's walking a beat. More  Tajiks Free Russian, Estonian Pilots A court in Tajikistan has ordered the release of two foreign pilots whose recent sentencing on smuggling and other charges set off a diplomatic row with Russia.More  Russian Patriarch To Visit Kyrgyzstan The leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, is expected to visit Kyrgyzstan next month. More  Reforming Russia's Prisons From Within It's been two years since lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died in Moscow's Butyrka remand prison, allegedly having been kept in inhumane conditions and denied routine medical care. Despite international outrage and a Kremlin order to investigate the case, it seems little has changed in Butyrka. Rights violations are routine and the conditions for further tragedies persist. More  Putin's Winter Of Discontent It isn't entirely clear whether fans at Moscow's Olympic Stadium booed Vladimir Putin this weekend. But it also doesn't matter. The incident has added to a growing narrative that Russia's national leader is wearing out his welcome. More  Uzbek 'Swimmer' Seeks Political Asylum An Uzbek who swam across a river from Russia to reach Estonia is applying for political asylum in Russia following his release from jail there. More  Moldova Set For Dialogue With Russia Moldovan Foreign Minister Iurie Leanca says Moscow is increasingly open to a "more intense dialogue" with Chisinau over the breakaway region of Transdniester. More  Was Putin Booed On Stage? Prime Minister Vladimir Putin might have got a nasty shock on November 20 as he climbed into the ring in front of 22,000 fans at a Moscow stadium to congratulate Russian martial-arts guru Fedor Emelianenko for an emphatic win over America’s Jeff Monson. More  Chechen Shot Dead In Moscow: Incriminate The Usual Suspects Ruslan Akhtakhanov, a Chechen businessman, public figure, and minor poet living in Moscow, was shot dead on the street late on November 15. Russia's Investigative Committee immediately listed North Caucasus insurgents as the most likely suspects. Other members of the Moscow Chechen community are skeptical, however, and with good reason. More  Chechen Militant Threatens Turkey Chechen militant leader Doku Umarov has threatened Turkey with unspecified retaliatory measures after the killing of a number of Caucasus militants on Turkish soil. More  'World's Largest Koran' In Tatarstan A Koran billed as the world's largest has been unveiled in Kazan, the capital of Russia's republic of Tatarstan. More  Russian Activists Cool On Legal Amendments To Protect Journalists Rights activists in Russia remain skeptical that fresh legal changes will bring an end to the legislative persecution of journalists, warning that the success of recent amendments to the Criminal Code on defamation and slander will hinge on how they're enforced. More  Villagers Accuse Ingushetian Leader's Relative Of Extortion Residents of a village in Ingushetia may have provided the Kremlin with the perfect pretext for removing Republic of Ingushetia President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov. More  Activists Protest At Russian Atomic Agency Belarusian antinuclear activists have picketed the Moscow building of Russia's state nuclear agency, Rosatom, protesting Moscow's plans to build a new nuclear station in western Belarus. More  Podcast: U.S. Tries To Be More Civil, Plus Iran's Deep Voice Of Satire In Episode 45 of The Blender, we sit down with Dr. Tomicah Tillemann, a senior adviser to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to find out why Washington is trying to be more civil. We also introduce you to RFE/RL's Farshid Manafi, just voted AIB's International Radio Personality of the Year, and to Dan Telegin, Russia's post-punk, lo-fi genius. More  Poll Says One In Four Russians Believe Putin Has Personality Cult More  Russia's Province Of Kosovo? Some Kosovar Serbs had hoped that Russian citizenship would be the best way to get Moscow involved and so prevent their enclave from being integrated under the Kosovar Albanian-led government's control. More  Finland To Open Consulate In Tatarstan Finland says it will open a consulate in Kazan, the capital of the Russian republic of Tatarstan. More  Citizen Tsivinyuk Russia's latest YouTube political sensation is a Siberian teenager. More  Tajiks Caught In Russian Crossfire Over Pilot Jailings Tajik nationals in the Russian capital say they're afraid to go out as relations between Moscow and Dushanbe continue to sour over the curious case of two Russian-employed pilots jailed in Tajikistan for smuggling. More  Afghanistan Impounds Russian Plane Afghan authorities have impounded a Russian freight plane belonging to an aviation company at the center of a high-profile case that has raised tensions between Tajikistan and Russia. More  Confirmation Of New U.S. Envoy To Moscow Blocked By Partisan PoliticsThe nomination of Michael McFaul to be Washington's new ambassador in Moscow has been delayed after a Republican congressman issued an objection on an unrelated issue. More objections are also likely, as the nomination becomes an avenue for Republicans to express their opposition to Obama's Russia policy.More  Tajikistan Says More Migrant Workers Detained In Russia Tajikistan's Migration Service says that the detention of Tajik citizens in Russia has increased in the past week amid a row with Moscow over the sentencing of two ethnic Russians for smuggling and other crimes. More  Russian Opposition Activists Picket Prosecutor-General's Office Some 20 opposition activists have staged a series of individual protests in front of the Russian Prosecutor-General's Office in Moscow. More Russian Pilots' Sentences 'Too Harsh'' A prosecutor in southern Tajikistan has described as "too harsh" the jail terms handed down last week to two pilots working for a Russian aviation company.More  London Trial Provides Rare Peek Into Russian Wealth And Power Two of Russia's most famous and -- at various times -- powerful oligarchs are facing off in a case that's providing a fascinating view into how that country's Soviet spoils were snapped up by a handful of super-rich men. More  World's Largest Koran To Be Presented To Tatar President A Koran billed as the world's largest is to be presented to the leader of the Russian republic of Tatarstan. More  Islamic Clergyman Shot Dead In Russia An assistant to the imam of a local mosque has been shot dead in western Daghestan near the border with Chechnya. More  Uzbek Citizen Arrested In Moscow For Murders Moscow police have arrested an Uzbek migrant worker in connection with the murder of a Kazakh woman and her one-year-old son. More Islamic Leaders Meet In Moscow Islamic leaders from across the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) have opened a two-day forum in Moscow on religious developments since the end of the Soviet Union 20 years ago. More  Badminton To Hone Russian Military? No one can accuse Dmitry Medvedev of failing to exhort Russians to better themselves. The president has urged everything from establishing fairness in the legal system to transforming the country's "paternalistic" society and overhauling the economy to lead the world in information technology. More  Elections In South Ossetia, Transdniester Pose Prickly Problems For Moscow The breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia has just held the first round of its presidential election, while the breakaway Moldovan region of Transdniester will hold its own presidential poll next month. In both cases, it appears Moscow wants to weaken the grip of entrenched political elites. More  Curtains For Kokoity It is not yet clear who the new de facto president of South Ossetia will be. One thing is clear, however: outgoing President Eduard Kokoity and his cronies have lost. More  Literature And Empire: Scholar Susan Layton Discusses Russia's 'Literary Caucasus' Where did Russia's stereotypes of the Caucasus come from? Susan Layton's book "Russian Literature and Empire: Conquest of the Caucasus from Pushkin to Tolstoy" provides part of the answer. More  Four Candidates Quit South Ossetian Presidential Race Over the past four days, four of the 17 registered candidates in the November 13 election to succeed Eduard Kokoity as de facto president of the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia have pulled out of the race. More Russian Response To Tajik Ruling After a Tajik court this week found two pilots working for a Russian air-charter company guilty of arms smuggling, an irate Moscow has mulled an appropriate response to what it believes was a "politically motivated" decision. More  Counterterror Restrictions Lifted In Kabardino-Balkaria As Insurgency Again Gathers Strength The Kabardino-Balkaria directorate of the Federal Security Service (FSB) has lifted the counterterror restrictions in force in the republic's mountainous Elbrus and Baksan districts, declaring that the Kabardino-Balkar-Karachai wing of the North Caucasus insurgency has been weakened to the point that it no longer poses a threat. That assumption may well prove spurious, however. More  Podcast: The Causes Of Militant Islam, Plus Putin And The State Of Marriage In Russia In Episode 44 of The Blender, a talk with "Wall Street Journal Asia" columnist Sadanand Dhume about the differences in violent, radical Islam from Pakistan to Indonesia; a report from Ingushetia on allegations of human rights violations by security services; and a closer look at accusations that Vladimir Putin had many affairs and beat his wife when working in East Germany in the 1980s. More  U.S Senators Urge Clinton To Reconsider Visit Of Russian Officials Connected To Magnitsky Case Two U.S. senators have urged Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to reconsider allowing the visit of two Russian officials allegedly involved in the prosecution and prison death of anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. More  Tajiks Say No Politics In Pilots' Case Tajikistan has said that there is no political motive behind the sentencing this week of two ethnic Russian pilots on charges of smuggling and entering Tajikistan illegally. More Russia's space agency says it has failed so far to repair a probe bound for Mars that is stuck in orbit around the Earth. Officials say they have two weeks to fix the problem before the craft, laden with toxic fuel, crashes back to Earth. More  Russia: 1,000 Campaign Violations Less than a month before the December 4 elections to the Russian State Duma, the Moscow-based NGO Golos (Vote) says it has registered more than 1,000 violations of election-related laws. More  Russian Whistle-Blower Denied Parole An ex-employee of Russia's state property agency who was punished after saying that the authorities fraudulently sold a stake in the oil giant Yukos has had his parole request turned down. More With Popularity Fading, United Russia Tries To Get Sexy Amidst rapidly declining poll numbers, the ruling United Russia party has released a steamy online video designed to win the support of younger voters. More Politicians Say Moscow Should 'Take Revenge' Against Dushanbe Over Sentencing Of Pilots Russian politicians and media are suggesting that Moscow should take serious steps of retaliation after a Tajik court issued lengthy sentences in connection with an international arms-smuggling case. More Would-Be Homeowners In Bashkortostan On Hunger Strike Five women in Ufa, the capital of the Russian republic of Bashkortostan, have begun a hunger strike demanding overdue apartments they have paid for. More  When The (Russian) Punishment Doesn't Fit The Crime The glaring disparity between sentences for manslaughter or murder handed to down to men from the North Caucasus, on the one hand, and ethnic Russians, on the other, sends equally pernicious messages to those two groups. 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