Yesterday, I wrote about how the unrest in Pugachev, where anti-Chechen riots broke out following the murder of a local paratrooper, was the result of the weak migration regime that has allowed ethnic resentments to grow unhindered. Ethnic tension, however, are only part of the puzzle. The bigger picture comprises the ineffective way in which […]
Long before the series of exposures of high-level officials who plagiarized their academic theses, Igor Danchenko and Clifford Gaddy of the Brookings Institution found out that Vladimir Putin’s thesis was “borrowed” from a book by two American scientists. In 2006 it was reported by the Washington Post and The Times. However in Russia that news […]
We’ve been following growing tensions in the North Caucasus town of Pugachev after anti-Chechen protests erupted in the wake of a murder of a half-Tatar and half-Russian former paratrooper at the hands of a Chechen youth. At the end of last week, the police arrested at least 13 people in a sweep related to the […]
The North Caucasus is a seething with tension in recent weeks. One area where ethnic tensions are rapidly escalating is in Pugachev. Below is part one of Sasha de Vogel’s investigation into what’s causing the tensions in the town. Part two of her investigation erosion of faith in the State is driving the protests at […]
The Russian State-Media outlet RIA Novosti has published an alarming headline on the state of corruption inside the Russian military: The financial cost of corruption uncovered in the Russian Armed Forces this year has soared 450 percent from last year to over 4.4 billion rubles ($130 million), the Prosecutor General’s Office reported on Thursday. “The […]
Few developments speak so well of how far Caucasian dictatorships have come since the grey days of the Soviet Union as the fabulously wealthy and incredibly investment-savvy 15-year-old male heir of Azerbaijan’s ruling family. When he was a mere 11 years old, Heydar Aliyev, the son of Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, purchased $44 million in […]
Along with the signatures and documents needed for registration in the elections for mayor of Moscow, the candidates provided their first financial reports on the contributions and expenditures of their campaign funds. Thus, acting mayor of Moscow Sergei Sobyanin has received almost 36 million rubles in his campaign fund, but the communist Ivan Melnikov isn’t […]
Investigators do not rule out that Musail Alaudinov could have been killed as a potential witness. In Dagestan there have been new developments in the murder case of Mr. Mussail Alaudinov, a 38-year old well-known athlete and the director of the “Gorets”, a well-known martial arts club. He was murdered on July 9 outside Makhachkala, […]
The tweet containing the picture above says it all: Oh,Russia.Where you can prosecute a ghost.MT @YuliaSkyNews Cameras film empty Magnitsky cage. Defendant long dead pic.twitter.com/45xBlr9TVa — Amie Ferris-Rotman (@Amie_FR) July 11, 2013 Today, Russian courts found deceased investment fund lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, guilty of tax evasion, along with his former client, William Browder (tried in absentia). […]
[The Russian section of Transparency International monitored the income declarations of State Duma deputies and calculated the cost of their acquisitions. The researchers caught dozens of deputies with their expenses exceeding their income. The deputies themselves unanimously deny any violations, claiming that “their conscience and hands are clean.” – Ed.] The research was conducted by […]
