The Russian judicial system is a service that can be extremely intrusive. As the case of Sergei Magntisky shows, exceptions are not even made for the dead. Neither are they made for accused people chained to hospital beds. But why talk about some “system”? Here is a specific judge from the Tverskoy district court in […]
Spotlight
“At the Sochi Olympics There Will Be a Lot of Gays”
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 […]
A Development In the Litvinenko Case
On Wednesday in the High Court in London, a two day debate on Marina Litvinenko’s supervisory appeal against the British Home Secretary, Theresa May, came to an end. Alexander Litvinenko’s widow is appealing against the Home Secretary’s decision not to hold a public inquiry into the murder of her husband. A public inquiry is a […]
Navalny Presents Sochi Corruption Map
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 […]
Navalny and the Interpreter on Sochi
In a blockbuster report released today, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny details the waste, fraud, and mismanagement behind the most expensive Olympics ever. It was inevitable that Alexey Navalny would do something big with the Olympics. The opposition leader famous for his anti-graft muckraking — and put on show trial for bogus “embezzlement” charges — […]
Russian State Duma Asks West To Not Interfere in Ukraine
On Wednesday the State Duma issued a statement on the events in Ukraine. As the Russian Foreign Minister did the day before, the deputies called on external forces to refrain from interfering in what is happening and to not aggravate the situation. “The State Duma calls on foreign politicians, who in violation of international law […]
Russian Prisoner of Conscience Platon Lebedev Released
Today or tomorrow, Platon Lebedev will be released [note – there are reports he was released Friday afternoon, after this article was published — Ed.]. It was decided by the Supreme Court as the result of hearings on the two “Yukos” cases. A month ago Platon Lebedev spoke about his upcoming release in an interview […]
Geneva II: What if We Set Expectations REALLY Low?
The goals of the Syria peace talks in Montreux are fairly straight forward: negotiate an end to armed conflict which has cost well over 120,000 lives and has displaced a huge percentage of the population. As I argued in my overview of the conference, there is absolutely no chance for success. So far, everything that […]
Ukraine Was Hijacked and America and Europe Are Next
My European and American friends, I know that you follow the news from Ukraine, and you have a picture of what’s happening. However, I’d like to explain how it concerns you. Ukraine was hijacked. You may remember Flight 93, the only aircraft that didn’t reach its target during the September 11 attacks: the hijackers headed to […]
Ukraine and Yanukovych: A Tug of War
This article was published yesterday in the business journal Vedomosti. Last night and today, clashes between protesters and Ukrainian security forces have intensified. — Ed. “The laws on dictatorship” adopted by show of hands by the Verkhovna Rada on January 16, were met by Ukraine that was in a state of a frozen political conflict. […]