Catherine A. Fitzpatrick

CATHERINE A. FITZPATRICK is senior Russian translator and analyst for The Interpreter, an online daily news site dedicated to translating news and social media from Russia and Ukraine. Previously she worked as an editor of weeklies on Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan for EurasiaNet.org and was also editor at RFE/RL's (Un)Civil Societies and Media Matters. She has been involved in the international human rights movement for many years, serving as a consultant to a number of non-profit organizations. She has also translated some 30 books from Russian into English, including the memoirs of Boris Yeltsin, Edward Shevardnadze and Vladimir Putin.

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 […]

On Thursday this week a court in Yekaterinburg issued a two year suspended sentence to a journalist, Aksana Panova, for extortion. The sentence came with an unheard of addition: Panova is banned from working in media for two years. That the grounds for the conviction are ropey at best is worrying enough, though unsurprising for […]

Both remaining imprisoned members of Pussy Riot, Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova have been released from prison this morning. UPDATES 1929 GMT: Maria Alyokhina has arrived in Moscow. 1722 GMT: Translation of Nadezhda Tolokonnnikova’s interview with TV Dozhd up. @gruppa_voina tweets that Maria Alyokhina will be arriving at Moscow’s Kursky Station at 23.15 MSK (19:15 GMT) in […]

The Ukrainian government suspended preparations for signing the Association Agreement today after a vote in parliament failed to achieve a sufficient majority to pass legislation that would allow the jailed former prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko to receive medical treatment abroad. The EU considered Tymoshenko’s release essential for progress with the agreement, which was hoped to […]