FSB and Police Informers in Russia Now to Get Pensions

July 6, 2015

Staunton, July 6 – Those who serve as informers for the Russian secret police will now receive pensions, according to a new law. By this action, Vladimir Putin simultaneously corrects a shortcoming in Soviet legislation – until now, informers couldn’t count their “service” toward a pension – while offending ordinary Russians who see their own […]

Moscow’s Plan to Create Military Police ‘Falls Victim to Interagency Intrigues,’ ‘Sovershenno Sekretno’ Says

Staunton, July 2 – Moscow in March 2015 confirmed the statute for military police in the Russian armed forces as part of an effort to fight dedovshchina and modernize the military, but three months later, the creation of this critical network has been blocked, the victim of infighting among various agencies, according to an article […]

Moderate Opposition Parties Losing Out as Russian Politics Polarize, Kynyev Says

July 3, 2015

Staunton, July 3 – Russian moderate opposition parties are losing support while “the activity of parties advancing more radical positions is growing,” according to Aleksandr Kynyev, a specialist on regional development, reporting on the findings of the first report on the current election cycle prepared by the Committee on Civic Initiatives. In an article in […]

Post-Soviet States Entering Second Anti-Communist Revolutionary Period, Shmelyev Says

July 2, 2015

Staunton, July 2 – The post-Soviet world is entering its own version of 1968, Aleksandr Shmelyev says, “and everything which is taking place in Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine, Armenia, Russia and so on can be conceived as a wave of ‘secondary anti-communist revolutions,’ as attempts to put the authorities under the control of society.” In 1968, […]

Jews Again Leaving Russia Because ‘After Putin, There Will Be Another Putin’

Staunton, July 2 – For the first time since the 1990s, the number of Jews emigrating from Russia to Israel has gone up dramatically, doubling between 2013 and 2014 to 4685. But this new wave is different from its predecessors in that its members are younger, better educated, and almost exclusively from Moscow. Moreover, this […]

Primakov’s Death United Russians More than Crimea, a Measure of the Sickness of Russian Society, Portnikov Says

July 1, 2015

Staunton, July 1 The passing of Yevgeny Primakov “unexpectedly unified Russian society no less” and quite possibly more than the Crimean Anschluss, and the basis of this – an “indisputable faith in the greatness of the old Soviet nomenklatura” represents “a real diagnosis of the illness of Russian or more precisely post-Soviet society,” Vitaly Portnikov […]

Russian Defender of Hitler No Longer to ‘Defend’ Human Rights in US

June 29, 2015

Staunton, June 29 – Andranik Migranyan, who became infamous for his suggestion that Hitler would have been a second Bismarck if the Nazi leader had stopped before invading Poland, is going back to Moscow because his Institute for Democracy and Cooperation in New York, which Vladimir Putin created in 2007, is closing down. According to […]

Few in Crimea of Any Nationality Now View Themselves as Russian Patriots, Polls Show and Officials Concede

Staunton, June 28 – Many of the hopes that some Russians in Crimea had for their homeland after the Russian Anschluss have not been realized, and as a result, polls show, and occupation officials concede, that “the majority of young Crimeans” regardless of nationality “do not consider themselves to be patriots of Russia.” In Novyye […]