RFE/RL RUSSIA REPORT
12/6/2011 7:20:43 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 . |
 Podcast: Russia's New Politics Sunday's elections in Russia appear to have crystallized mounting discontent with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's rule. In the latest edition of The Power Vertical podcast, I speak with Kirill Kobrin, managing editor of RFE/RL's Russian Service, about the emerging political reality. More  South Ossetia Heads Into Uncharted Constitutional Waters The Supreme Court of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia has upheld its annulment of the outcome of the presidential runoff in which opposition candidate Alla Dzhioyeva defeated the Kremlin's preferred candidate, Anatoly Bibilov. More  First Person: Life In Russia As A Non-Russian Child Aida Kasymalieva reports from Moscow for RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service. This summer, she brought her 5-year-old daughter, Bermet, to Moscow from the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, where she had been living with her grandparents. This is Kasymalieva's account of her daughter's experience of life in Russia. More  Moscow Beefs Up Police As Rallies Continue The situation in Moscow is tense as opposition and pro-Kremlin groups take to the streets in the Russian capital, amid reports that authorities have deployed tens of thousands more police and troops. More  Clinton: Ex-Soviet Nations Need Reforms U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has pushed for greater democratic reforms and respect for human rights in former Soviet republics -- criticizing Russia for a parliamentary election she says was rigged. More  Arrests As Russians Protest Vote Results Thousands turned out in Moscow and St. Petersburg to protest United Russia's apparent victory in weekend voting, with reports of 400 or more arrests. More  Brent Scowcroft: 'Gorbachev Was Doing Our Work For Us' As the Soviet Union careened toward collapse in 1991, no country was watching the unfolding events more closely than the United States. President George H.W. Bush was in the White House, and at his side was his national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft. As Scowcroft recalls to RFE/RL, it was "history unfolding before us and we weren't sure how it was going to work out." More  Nothing Has Changed And Everything Has Changed In many ways, Sunday's election change nothing at all. And in many ways it changed everything. More  Is The Putin Magic Gone? Three leading figures in the Russian state -- President Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, and Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov -- have been severely weakened by the December 4 election result. Former Federation Council speaker Sergei Mironov, who has reinvented himself as an opposition figure, meanwhile, looks like the big winner. What are the implications? More  No End In Sight To South Ossetia Standoff One week after the Supreme Court in Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia annulled the results of the presidential runoff, there is no end in sight to the standoff between the apparent winner and the outgoing regime. More  Fall Of The U.S.S.R.: The View From The Other White House As the Soviet Union careened toward collapse in 1991, no country was watching the unfolding events more closely than the United States. Washington had no control over events and didn't know whether the outcome would help or hurt U.S. national interests. More  Russian Vote 'Marred By Violations' Western election observers have chided Russia for parliamentary polls that saw Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia barely clinging onto its majority. Critics say the result would have been even worse for the ruling party had the election been free and fair. More  United Russia Out Of Step With Society The heavy losses suffered by the ruling United Russia party in parliamentary elections at the weekend is a reflection of dramatic changes in the Russian Federation in recent years, according to analysts. More  Allegations Of Electoral Violations Made Across Russia -- And Online Even before polls closed in Russia's parliamentary elections, accusations of vote-rigging and fraud -- all to aid the ruling United Russia party -- had been widely reported. And in the Age of the Internet, some of the alleged violations have been filmed or photographed and posted on the web. More  Russians Cast Ballots To Choose New Duma With polls suggesting Russia's long-dominant ruling party will struggle to maintain its supermajority in today's voting, a weak showing by United Russia could be the clearest sign yet of rising public discontent in Putin's Russia. More  Urals Challenge To Russia Ruling Party As the clock ticked down to this weekend's Russian elections, cities like Yekaterinburg emerged as outposts of opposition to United Russia. More  Russia Governor Hurt In Deadly Crash The driver of one of the cars that collided with Sverdlovsk Oblast Governor Aleksandr Misharin's vehicle died in the accident. Misharin and his driver survived the December 1 accident but were taken to hospital in critical condition. More  A Friend's Film Tribute To Anna Politkovskaya Premieres In Moscow "A Bitter Taste Of Freedom," a film about Anna Politkovskaya, a private woman whom most people know as a fearless journalist and Kremlin critic slain in 2006, finally premieres in Moscow. More  South Ossetia's Alla Dzhioyeva Comes Into Her Own During the recent campaign to lead the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia, former Education Minister Alla Dzhioyeva has emerged as the unlikely focal point of an even more unlikely pro-democracy movement. More  Government Deputy Tells Russians To Vote For 'Party of Thieves And Swindlers' In a last ditch effort to shake off the Internet moniker plaguing Russia’s ruling party, a United Russia deputy has actually tried to co-opt it by calling on Russians to “vote for the party of thieves and swindlers” at State Duma elections on December 4. More  Podcast: British-Iranian Blowup, Hijras Of Pakistan, And Conquest Of The Caucasus In The Blender this week, a closer look at the storming of the British Embassy in Tehran and long-standing tensions behind the diplomatic blowup, a legal victory for long-oppressed transgender males in Pakistan, and a fascinating discussion of literature’s role in Russia’s relations with the Caucasus. More  Documentary Takes Sympathetic Look At Khodorkovsky Case Former Yukos boss Mikhail Khodorkovsky has been in jail in Russia since 2003 and could remain there until 2017. But he is far from forgotten. The latest sign is a new film about him, which premiered in New York on November 30. More  Survey Finds Endemic Corruption Corruption in politics and the public sector has become increasingly entrenched in the world, helping to fuel a year of unprecedented protest. That's according to the latest report from the watchdog group Transparency International, which tracks perceived levels of corruption in 182 nations. More  Has South Ossetian Leader Outfoxed Moscow? Tensions are rising in the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia following a clumsy attempt by de facto President Eduard Kokoity to thwart Moscow's attempt to install its preferred candidate to succeed him. More  Memorial Erected In Moscow To Colonel Who Killed Chechen Teen A memorial stone devoted to a former Russian army colonel convicted of murdering a young Chechen woman has appeared at the site where he was shot dead in June. More  The Legitimacy Crisis United Russia and Vladimir Putin are virtually assured victory in the coming election cycle. But then what? More  Obituary: Stalin's Daughter Struggled In The Shadow Of Her Father The only daughter of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, Lana Peters, who died last week at the age of 85, caused a sensation when she defected to the United States at the height of the Cold War. Her notoriety helped turn her into a bestselling author when she subsequently published her memoirs. Those who knew her, however, say she struggled all her life between her desire for privacy and the unwanted publicity that engulfed her because of her infamous father. More |
