Russia Update

Leonid Volkov, an opposition activist who organized independent monitoring of local elections and protested government harassment of alternative candidates is now facing a trumped-up case of “obstructing the media” for refusing to give an interview to pro-Kremlin TV channel LifeNews. Welcome to our column, Russia Update, where we will be closely following day-to-day developments in […]

Russian intelligence claims to have foiled a plot by Russian terrorists trained in Syria to bomb public transport. Welcome to our column, Russia Update, where we will be closely following day-to-day developments in Russia, including the Russian government’s foreign and domestic policies. The previous issue is here. Recent Translations: –The Non-Hybrid War –Kashin Explains His […]

Russian authorities are once again taking reprisals against opposition leader Alexey Navalny for his anti-corruption work and are coming to seize his property in trumped-up court case. Welcome to our column, Russia Update, where we will be closely following day-to-day developments in Russia, including the Russian government’s foreign and domestic policies. The previous issue is […]

Sociologist Denis Sokolov, an anthropologist and senior researcher for the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, has traveled to the Russian Caucasus and the Donbass to interview warlords to find out what factors sustain them. He finds not so much confirmation of the poverty theory of the “root causes of terrorism” but […]

Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich has won the Nobel Prize for literature, and although she writes in Russian, the “Russian World” promoters are not happy. Welcome to our column, Russia Update, where we will be closely following day-to-day developments in Russia, including the Russian government’s foreign and domestic policies. The previous issue is here. Special features: […]

After the infamous “foreign agents” law that has hindered or closed more than 60 non-government organizations, the State Duma has turned its sights on the media and is now drafting a law regulating media companies that are financed from abroad, Welcome to our column, Russia Update, where we will be closely following day-to-day developments in […]

As we reported in recent weeks, prominent Russian blogger Oleg Kashin has revealed the identities of the men who brutally assaulted him in 2010 for his critical writing, leaving him hospitalized for months. For years, he investigated the possible perpetrators of the attack, theorizing it could be either related to officials angered at his coverage […]

Yesterday, October 5, Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov received Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, the first vice president of Afghanistan, to discuss cooperation in their struggle against ISIS. Welcome to our column, Russia Update, where we will be closely following day-to-day developments in Russia, including the Russian government’s foreign and domestic policies. The previous issue is here. […]

Igor Sechin, CEO of Rosneft, Russian oligarch and top crony of President Vladimir Putin has fallen out of Bloomberg’s “most influential people in the world.” Welcome to our column, Russia Update, where we will be closely following day-to-day developments in Russia, including the Russian government’s foreign and domestic policies. The previous issue is here. Russia […]

Former finance minister Aleksei Kudrin estimates the cost of the Russian operation in Syria as less than a large training exercise and much less than the war in Ukraine. Welcome to our column, Russia Update, where we will be closely following day-to-day developments in Russia, including the Russian government’s foreign and domestic policies. The previous […]