Welcome to The Interpreter’s Sochi Olympics Liveblog, day three. Click here to see yesterday’s Sochi Liveblog: The First Events Start, But is Sochi Really Ready?. Updates are below, so make sure to regularly refresh this screen. 2116 GMT: Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov conducted an in-depth investigation into the corruption surrounding the Olympic games in […]
Welcome to The Interpreter’s Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics Liveblog, day two. Click here to see yesterday’s Sochi Liveblog: The 48 Hour Dash to the Opening Ceremonies. Updates are below, so make sure to regularly refresh this screen. 2254 GMT: Andrei Soldatov has written an excellent summary of the state of the FSB’s electronic surveillance efforts […]
The Sochi Winter Olympics start in just two days. This week, The Interpreter’s managing editor James Miller speaks to Boston College Professor Dr. Matt Sienkiewicz about whether Russia is ready for the Olympics, what to look out for during the Olympics, and whether or not the games will be safe from terrorism. Also see today’s liveblog of the run-up to the […]
With the opening ceremony now almost exactly 48 hours away, officials and construction workers in Sochi are now desperately hurrying to bring the Olympic facilities on line. Journalists, who have flooded Sochi in the last day so, have been met with clear evidence of this chaotic bolt for completion. Our liveblog continues here. 0004 […]
As Friday’s opening ceremony draws near, the Institute of Modern Russia, of which The Interpreter is a special project, has launched a comprehensive and interactive website detailing the myriad cases of corruption and controversies surrounding the Olympic Games in Sochi. The website, available in both English and Russian, presents “exclusive information on 26 Olympic-related objects, including […]
A pro-Kremlin Russian media outlet, Kommersant, has held a question and answer session with the EU’s ambassador to Russia, Vygaudas Ušackas, in which they discuss relations between Moscow and Brussels. This is the first part of the interview. The second part can be found here. – Ed. Several days before the latest Russian-European Union (EU) […]
This week, the mayor of the city where the 2014 Winter Olympics will be held, Anatoly Pakhomov said that there were no gays in Sochi. However, Nikolai Alekseev, the head of Moscow’s gay pride movement, begs to differ. — Ed. The founder of Moscow Gay Pride movement Nikolai Alekseev commented on Kommersant FM on the […]
Alexei Navalny has launched an interactive website displaying the results of his investigations into corruption in the construction projects for the Sochi Winter Olympics. The report was translated by The Interpreter, and an analysis of the report has been written by our editor-in-chief, Michael Weiss. Below is an article published in Lenta.ru, a liberal Russian […]
There has been a horrific discovery in Stavropol, less than 300km from Sochi. Kommersant reports that 6 people (the BBC says 5) have been found shot to death in 5 cars, and an improvised explosive device has gone off near one of the cars. The BBC adds that authorities have already identified some suspects, and […]
A massive security operation has been launched in Volgograd following the December 29th and 30th bombings in the city that have claimed at least 34 lives. Hundreds have been detained, mostly migrants from North Caucasus. With the Sochi Olympics only 5 weeks away, a Russian security expert warns that the FSB, The Federal Security Service […]
