In the midst of the closing ceremonies of the Sochi Winter Olympics, and the crisis in Ukraine which has now toppled the Yanukovych government, a Russian court handed down sentences to the defendants in the Bolotnaya protest trial who had been found guilty last week. The result comes as no surprise to defence lawyer, Sergei […]
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, along with several other performers, activists and journalists, have been attacked by Cossack paramilitary police while attempting a protest performance in Sochi this afternoon (RT has removed their video so we have replaced it with video from the Associated Press). The group attempted once again, having been detained yesterday, to […]
The following is a translation of an article on Slon, summarizing yesterday’s events across Ukraine. For more details see The Interpreter’s liveblog, which has extensive pictures, videos, and reports. Also see today’s liveblog for the latest news. — Ed. Barricades on the side of Institutskaya Street and Evropeyskaya Square were taken by Berkut, the square […]
Marina Litvinenko, the widow of former FSB spy-turned-MI6 spy Alexander Litvinenko, has won a court judgment overturning a decision by the British Home Office, which last year ruled that a public enquiry into the murder of her husband. The British government has serially repeated its reluctance to air the findings of its investigation into the […]
On January 31, 2014, Alexei Navalny published a petition to Russian authorities he had made asking for permission to travel to Sochi to conduct research for his website and his blog. He described the extensive evidence of corruption he had found in Olympic construction projects (in a project translated by The Interpreter) and asked for permission […]
Speaking at a meeting with participants of the public council to prepare for the Sochi Olympics earlier in the week, President Vladimir Putin called “the Circassian factor” an “atavism of the theory of deterrence,” and an “instrument of the cold war.” “Back during the ‘cold war,’ the ‘deterrence theory’ was born, aimed at deterring the […]
This is the second part of an article published by Lenta.Ru on how foreign journalists perceived the Olympics opening ceremonies (read the first part here). The criticism of the Lenta piece is that some readers believe that many of the quotes from the Western authors have been cherry picked, segments critical of Putin and the […]
Citizens of the countries that permit same-sex marriages are no longer able to adopt orphans from Russia. A decree to that effect was signed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. The Russian government has changed the rules for the transfer of orphans for adoption, having introduced an additional ban on foreign adoptions by same-sex couples. The […]
The problems at the Sochi Olympics are well known, and both the international community and the Russian opposition has been quick to point them out. But for many Russians, even those upset with Putin and Sochi’s corruption, the Olympics also represent a sad lost opportunity. What should be a great event and a sign of […]
Tensions between Latvia and Russia have been growing, especially since Latvia has just joined the Eurozone. Prominent Latvians have accused Russia of using “soft power” to influence internal affairs. Now, Latvia has banned the justification or denial of either Nazi or Soviet occupation during World War II. In other words, Latvia is attempting to establish […]
