This article was co-authored by Andrew S. Bowen and Luke Rodeheffer. There has been considerable speculation recently about a nascent alliance between China and Russia, especially given the context of America’s “pivot” to Asia. The pivot coincides with increasing anxiety by Russia over its Far East and has led it to increase its political and economic […]
The Russian government, and the Russian state media, have had a tough few weeks. The United Nations released their report on the August 21st chemical weapons attack in Damascus, Syria. While the UN mission in Syria did not allow the investigators to say who used chemical weapons, the team investigating the incident was able to unearth […]
The Kerry Plan Some say it was a mistake, but if it was then it was the “gaffe heard round the world.” John Kerry made a sarcastic, and possibly off-the-cuff, comment about how Syrian President Bashar al Assad might escape U.S. military attacks aimed at punishing him for using chemical weapons on August 21st: He […]
Russia has long been a country identified with secretive and elite security and police agencies; from the Oprichina of Ivan the Terrible, the Okhrana of the Tsar’s, the Cheka and KGB of the Bolsheviks and Soviet Union, to the FSB of today. Due to the multitude of differing agencies, often times with varying levels of […]
Russia has been a staunch supporter of Syrian President Bashar al Assad. Since the crisis in Syria began in 2011, Russia has repaired Assad’s attack helicopters, has delivered weapons and munitions to the Syrian regime, and has continuously blocked all actions by the United Nations Security Council, even when those actions only consisted of statements […]
With the September 8 election fast approaching, the Moscow mayoral race is heating up. Thus far, the campaign has been the most contentious in a major Russian election in recent memory, with mayor Sergei Sobyanin’s surprise resignation and bid for reelection, and activist Alexei Navalny’s dramatic entry onto the electoral scene, despite a conviction for […]
On June 4 2012, Russian reporter Sergei Sokolov was part of a press delegation accompanying the three-year-old Investigative Committee, often described as Russia’s FBI, on a trip to Kabardino-Balkaria, a republic in the Caucasus. Sokolov’s publication, Novaya Gazeta, is one of the few independent newspapers left in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, a fact ominously borne out […]
Over the last several weeks, racist crowds have reportedly attacked markets in St. Petersburg and in Moscow, often with the assistance of the police. Without cause, immigrants selling fruit in marketplaces have been beaten or arrested, and their produce destroyed, often before they are even given an opportunity to present any documents that could prove […]
Last Thursday, Sergei Magnitsky was convicted of tax evasion. The only problem was he was not there to hear the verdict read. Magnitsky was killed in Moscow’s Butyrka prison in 2009, likely as a result of beatings and a lack of medical treatment. His crime was uncovering a $230 million tax fraud involving members of […]
Yesterday, I wrote about how the unrest in Pugachev, where anti-Chechen riots broke out following the murder of a local paratrooper, was the result of the weak migration regime that has allowed ethnic resentments to grow unhindered. Ethnic tension, however, are only part of the puzzle. The bigger picture comprises the ineffective way in which […]
