RFE/RL RUSSIA REPORT
15.01.2013
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 . |
 Academic 'Ghostwriting' Still Going Strong In Russia With New Year festivities behind them, Russian students are now hard at work on their end-of-term thesis papers. But cheating is still rife in Russian universities, with many students paying others to write their academic papers. More  New Foreign-Policy Leaders In U.S. Congress May Challenge White House When Congress begins its new session this month, two new lawmakers will lead its key foreign-relations committees who might challenge some Obama administration foreign policies, especially toward Iran and the Caucasus. More  Jailed Russian Activist's Lawyer Says Client Deprived Of Sleep The president of the Lawyers Collegiate in the Siberian city of Angarsk says a jailed opposition activist is being deprived of sleep. More  The Advocate: Yury Shmidt, 1937-2013 Russian human rights attorney Yury Shmidt died this weekend at the age of 75. More  Russian Defense Minister Declares War On Footwraps Russia's new defense minister has banned the used of foot cloths, a traditional alternative to socks, in the army. Sergei Shoigu said foot cloths should be eradicated from the Russian armed forces by the end of the year. More  Russian Volcano Reawakens  The eruption of Russia's Plosky Tolbachik volcano began in November after it was dormant for almost 40 years. Tolbachik is a volcanic complex on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia's Far East. It consists of two volcanoes -- Plosky Tolbachik (3,085 meters) and Ostry Tolbachik (3,682 meters). More  Russia's Muddled Policy Driving Migrant Workers Into Shadows Russia's migration policy is plagued by contradictions. On one hand, the Kremlin would like to fill gaps in the labor market and reap additional tax revenues by legalizing millions of illegal foreign workers. But persistent anti-immigrant attitudes prevent this from happening. More  Russian Orphan Holds Out Hope For U.S. Adoptive Parents  A Russian teenage orphan who is hoping to join prospective adoptive parents in the United States become the unlikely poster boy of a Kremlin campaign to stop U.S. adoptions in Russia. (AP video, with RU-RTR) More  Lavrov Urges Syrian Opposition Response Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has repeated Russian calls for opposition fighters and leaders in Syria to seek dialogue with Bashar Assad to end the bloodshed there. More A Tajik citizen has been shot and killed by police in Moscow after allegedly threatening officers with a knife. More  Thousands March In Moscow To Protest Adoption Ban Several thousand protesters took to the streets of Moscow against a law banning Americans adopting from Russian children and for parliament to be dissolved. Demonstrators carried placards calling for the Duma to be disbanded, and chanted that the antiadoption law is a "shame." (Reuters) More  On Press Day, Putin Lauds Journalists Russian President Vladimir Putin has congratulated journalists on the occasion of their annual professional holiday. More Thousands Protest Russia Adoption Ban Tens of thousands of protesters have held a sanctioned march through the center of Moscow to protest a recently adopted law that bans the adoption of Russian children by U.S. citizens. More  Russian Researchers Tout Historic Feat Kilometers Beneath Antarctic Ice Scientists from Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute say they obtained a 2-meter-long "core [sample] of transparent lake ice" from the waters of Antarctica's subglacial Lake Vostok on January 10. It's an unrivaled achievement that could unlock a trove of evolutionary and biological secrets under kilometers of ice. More  U.S.-Russia Talks On Syria End In Geneva International mediator Lakhdar Brahimi and senior U.S. and Russian diplomats have called for a quick political solution to end the civil war in Syria, but reached no breakthrough. More  Podcast: Action Man -- Sergei Shoigu Takes On Russia's Defense Ministry What happens when one of Russia's most popular and enigmatic figures meets one of its most entrenched bureaucracies? Sergei Shoigu is about to find out. More  Russian Orphan Thrust Into Spotlight By Adoption Ban A 14-year-old Russian orphan has been making headlines since his country adopted a controversial law banning the adoption of Russian children by U.S. citizens. Maksim Kargapoltsev was close to being adopted by a U.S. family when the ban came into force, dashing his hopes of joining his new parents in the United States. Maksim's case has come to symbolize the uncertain fate of Russian orphans with pending U.S adoptions. More  Chechen Leader Appoints Gold-Smuggling Suspects To Senior Government Posts Chechen Republic head Ramzan Kadyrov has named to senior government posts two men detained in Turkey in October while apparently attempting to smuggle 12 kilograms of gold out of the country. More  Former Russian Minister Refuses Questions Former Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov has again refused to answer investigators' questions over a multimillion-dollar property fraud case. More  St. Petersburg Unveils World's Biggest iPhone The latest version of Apple's iconic iPhone, the iPhone 5, is 9 millimeters taller than its predecessor, but it doesn't hold a candle to an iPhone unveiled this week in St. Petersburg, Russia. More St. Petersburg Latest City To Honor Apple's Steve Jobs A giant 3-meter-tall black iPhone, with a working touch screen, was unveiled outside the St. Petersburg National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics, and Optics on January 9. It's a memorial honoring the contributions of Apple founder Steve Jobs. The screen displays video, photos and text documenting Jobs' remarkable life. It joins monuments to Jobs in Budapest and Odesa. (7 PHOTOS) More  New Year's Holiday Sparks Controversy In Daghestan Ten Daghestani men were arrested in late December for urging fellow citizens of the Muslim-majority, North Caucasus republic to shun the secular New Year's holiday. All the men have now been released, but the controversy over whether Muslims should celebrate secular holidays simmers on. More  Russian Adoption Ban: One U.S. Family Counts Its Blessings While Others Fight On When Russia late last year rushed to ban adoptions by American citizens, the move affected dozens of U.S. families in the final stages of the process. RFE/RL spoke to one mother who made it out of Russia with her adopted daughter just in time as well as others who are still trying to get their children out. More  Depardieu's Passport Irks Russians Who Have Waited Years For Citizenship Russians are complaining about the preferential treatment shown to French actor Gerard Depardieu. At the order of the president, Depardieu was given a Russian passport in less than two days -- while most ethnic Russians seeking to move to Russia from other former Soviet republics have to spend years passing through "seven circles of hell" to get the crimson ticket. More  Russian Winter Resorts Under Scrutiny After Tragic 'Orbing' Accident Safety at Russian ski resorts has come under scrutiny after a horrific "orbing" accident left one man dead and another seriously injured. More  Disabled Daghestani Comes Out Kicking Sakinat Magamedova, a taekwondo champion from the Russian republic of Daghestan, proves that life is what you make of it. Born without arms, she's not only a successful athlete but is also busy raising two children. More  Controversy Looms As Work Begins On Polish Film About Smolensk Plane Crash Shooting is set to begin on a controversial new film depicting the events surrounding the Smolensk air disaster in 2010 that killed 96 people, including Polish President Lech Kaczynski. More  Huskies Race For Tatarstan's 'Golden Sleigh' Sled-dog racing has a long tradition in Russia's Far North, but it's just beginning to take off in other regions. Some 40 teams from different Russian cities met in Tatarstan in January to show off their dogs' speed and skill. More  Belarus Activists Fined After Posting Protest Photo Online Three Belarusian men have been fined for holding an unsanctioned rally in the city of Hrodno. So far, that's par for the course for Belarus's beleaguered opposition. But the three were not detained during their protest. Instead, the evidence used against them was a photo of their picket posted online. More  Invigorated Customs Union Presents Russia's Neighbors With Stark Choice Russian President Vladimir Putin's premier foreign-policy initiative, the Eurasian Customs Union, is showing unprecedented vitality. But the European Union says membership in the ECU is incompatible with closer economic ties with the EU. This confronts many former Soviet states -- especially Ukraine and Moldova -- with a stark choice. More |
