On October 19th, Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova published a letter in The New Times, describing how prisoners are often transferred to punish, or silence them. Nadia requested that the article be published, because she knew her own transfer might be coming. On October 21, her prediction came true, and she was put on a train […]
To say that racism is pandemic in Russia these days might be an understatement. Sunday’s race riots in Moscow were certainly not the first time The Interpreter has raised the alarm over the increasingly-radical nationalist movement. Over the summer, a Russian paratrooper was killed by a Chechen immigrant in the North Caucasus town of Pugachev. Though […]
Alexei Navalny walked out of a Russian court a free man this morning, after his five-year prison sentence was suspended. Over the summer, Navalny was convicted for embezzling 16 millions roubles (about half a million dollars) worth of wood. The initial trial was widely viewed as a political sham, as the defense was not allowed […]
It’s not that Vladimir Putin will suffer no rivals, it’s that his rivals will suffer. Sergei Magnitsky, Sergey Udaltsov, Leonid Nevzlin, Sergei Guriyev, Mikhail Khodorkovsky… these are just a few of the names of outspoken critics of the Russian government who have been imprisoned or who have had to flee the country to avoid imprisonment, just because they have angered […]
Russian authorities turned their informal descriptions of Greenpeace activists as pirates into legal charges Wednesday, the latest escalation in a saga that began two weeks ago as a protest against drilling in the Arctic.
UN weapons inspectors have returned to Syria and have launched an investigation into seven alleged chemical weapons attacks across the country. Some of the sites were selected before the August 21st chemical weapons attack that brought the world to the brink of war, and some of them are new sites around Damascus. However, there is one location […]
A Supreme Court judge in Russia’s North Caucasus province of Dagestan was shot dead along with his son on Wednesday, the second member of the court to be killed this year in a region beset by an Islamist insurgency and violent crime.
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 […]
Alexei Navalny and his campaign manager maintain that Sergei Sobyanin did not receive more than 50% of the votes, which would force a runoff vote between Sobyanin and Navalny, the top two vote-getters in Moscow’s mayoral election. For more background on yesterday’s elections, click here. For a summary of the election results as of this […]
