Russia

In a move likely to lead to federal legislation, St Petersburg is seeking to pass a bill outlawing ‘gay propaganda’. This would put Russia’s beleaguered gay community even more at risk, Kathryn Dovey reports for Human Rights Watch

Yesterday saw the final episode of ‘Putin, Russia and the West’ aired on BBC2. The four-part documentary has attracted a huge amount of criticism — yet most of it has been undeserved, says Fydor Lukyanov. Those who watch the films with an open mind will see they contribute much to our understanding of recent political history, in particular the phenomenon of Vladimir Putin.

Syrian state-controlled media blames most of the deaths on armed groups (which it calls terrorists). These allegations have awakened Russia’s dormant–but not forgotten–memory of the Saudi-American alliance that created the Mujahidin networks in Afghanistan, which in turn defeated the Soviet Union.

Vladimir Putin’s one great achievement is the restoration of bureaucratic order after its near destruction by Gorbachev and privatisation by Yeltsin. Yet the end game is fast approaching, and the longer Putin clings on, the more likely he will be instead remembered for letting greedy friends and bureaucrats run amok, writes Vladimir Pastukhov

Intellectuals are excited that this winter’s protests are a sign Russia could finally be turning into a democratic state. Andrei Konchalovsky urges them to look back into the country’s past and see how far Russians still must travel to become normal Europeans. The protesters must show caution, he argues, or risk the kind of bloodshed that has accompanied other attempts to modernise the country.

Young, liberal figures such as Alexei Navalny and Vladimir Milov are building bridges between democratic and nationalist wings of the protest movement. Will this marriage prove a mix that mobilises a nation against the Putin regime, or will it taint the legitimacy of both sides in years to come, asks Nicu Popescu?

Russia’s growing nationalist movement has alarmed many liberal commentators, who wonder how the country that defeated Adolf Hitler could have given birth to so many young men overtly sympathetic to his ideas. Journalist Olesya Gerasimenko, who has covered several neo-Nazi trials, wondered where the defendants came from: how Russian boys could go out and kill foreigners in cold blood. She persuaded three of the convicted murderers’ parents to talk to her.

The nationalist-populist leader of Russia's protest movement Aleksey Navalny has made much of a claim that the Kremlin has been 'feeding' unruly citizens in the North Caucasus at the expense of 'ordinary' Russians. Mikhail Loginov visited a small Karachay village to see whether such a view has any reflection in reality.

Russians keen to punish Vladimir Putin at the polls on March 4 have four opposition candidates to choose from, but all are tarnished in some way by their links to the government. Grigorii Golosov analyses what voting strategy will work best to build on the momentum of this winter’s protests, and cautions against accepting any of the candidates’ claims to be true opposition material.

The economic and political transformations of the 1990s onwards have allowed much of the Russian countryside to die a slow death. Roman Yushkov and Vassily Moseyev ventured out of the city to examine the extent of the dilapidation and deterioration of rural life in their native Perm region.

In December 2011, Wikileaks released ‘Spy Files’, a project revealing details of the burgeoning surveillance and interception industry. The list of companies providing high-tech equipment to governments included a number of Russian firms, which are emerging as global leaders in the industry. Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan took to investigate how the Soviet Union’s expertise in spy technology is being adapted to the new reality of global capitalism.

The recent experience of neighbouring states suggests that Russia’s rulers will struggle to control future political developments. Make no mistake: revolution of one kind or another is already under way, argues Gela Vasadze.

Critical human rights reports from Western agencies have long been the source of consternation among Russian officials. At the end of last month, the Russian Foreign Ministry launched a counterattack, publishing a report highlighting supposed violations in the West. Oliver Bullough was surprised at how readily the document conflated issues of rights and common diplomacy.

For many Western readers the Kuril Islands are famous chiefly for being the subject of an post-WWII territorial dispute between USSR/Russia and Japan. Amidst the political wrangling, the Kuril islanders continue to go about their daily lives, reports Ksenya Semyonova, a native of nearby Sakhalin.

Politician-blogger Alexei Navalny and writer Grigory Chkhartishvili (a.k.a Boris Akunin) conclude their dialogue with an exploration of what their country might look like after democratic change. What should be the priorities for a new and free Russia?

The Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) is one of the most prestigious universities in Russia. The School abounds in clever and often rich young students, groomed to be the stars of tomorrow’s elite. Yet this privileged group is also one that has ousted politics from its daily life and — so far at least — has failed to respond to the momentous events currently shaking the country.

oD Russia continues publication of a remarkable exchange between two leaders of the Russian protest movement — writer Grigory Chkhartishvili, a.k.a Boris Akunin and politician-blogger Aleksey Navalny. In this part, the discussants compare their forecasts for the year ahead. 2012 will present an historic challenge to the authorities, they conclude, but will Russia's "arrestocratic" class be able to muster anything in response?

By electing to follow an aggressive policy of imperial nationalism, Putin and his inner circle missed the emergence of a serious domestic crisis that threatens the very existence of their regime. These same factors may also, however, subvert the country’s growing pro-democratic protest movement, says Andreas Umland.

Just before the last Moscow demonstration on December 24, two of the protest movement’s most popular leaders — writer Boris Akunin and politician-blogger Aleksey Navalny — got together for a fascinating public conversation. The three-part interview, published on Akunin’s blog, is arguably the fullest profile of Russia’s leading opposition politician and covers many of the more uncomfortable aspects of Navalny’s politics. ODR is pleased to present the full English translation of the interviews.

The recent wave of demonstrations against election fraud across Russia were preceded in the spring and autumn by protests from grassroots fishermen’s organisations, who marched to defend their right to fish for free. Authorities soon climbed down from their controversial plans to privatise rivers and lakes, but not before radicalising an estimated 15-20 million amateur fishermen, writes Oleg Pavlov.