The first indications as to how the Russian regime might react to the country's unexpected protest movement came this Thursday, when Putin took questions during a live TV broadcast. While there was plenty of the old belligerence on show, a new approach to the country’s intellectual elite suggests
For years, a pact of loyalty in exchange for roubles fostered the growth of a largely apolitical middle class in Russia. On Saturday, that middle class turned against their creator. They are, however, some way off uniting behind a single opposition candidate, write Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldato
Apparent fraud in Russia’s parliamentary elections has unleashed an unprecedented display of anger against Vladimir Putin’s United Russia Party. Many Russians who had been happy to go along with the political status quo finally decided that they had had enough. Last Monday, Alexandra Krylenkova at
The protests against widely perceived fraud in Russia’s parliamentary elections were broadcast throughout the world and went viral on the internet. The role of social networks in spreading discontent and organising the demonstrations in Russian cities is a crucial development, but with the leaders
United Russia may have obtained a technical victory in Sunday’s disputed parliamentary elections, but their failure to obtain 50% of the votes has imparted serious psychological damage on the ruling elite. It has also emboldened the public, which for the first time in a long time realises it can m
Russia holds parliamentary elections on Sunday, but with most of the important questions already well answered, there is little in the way of pre-election suspense. Tanya Lokshina writes on crows, apathy and a growing number for whom Putin’s soft authoritarianism is already yesterday’s story.
Russia goes to the polls on Sunday for parliamentary elections, yet Grigorii Golosov has failed to notice much of a campaign. Rather than presenting a case in a traditional electoral manner, it seems the authorities have settled on a different formula: mobilising state-dependent citizens and denyi
President Medvedev has made much of Russia’s need for modernisation and advanced technology. One project piloted in some Moscow metro stations involves face recognition using biometric technology. This can clearly be used as protection against terrorism, but given that the organisation which commi
The recent Putin-Medvedev announcement has made a lame duck of President Medvedev, who clearly no longer has any significant say in matters political or economic. But did he ever? Were Russians not just going along with the deception, as older children do to get presents from Santa Claus, in whom
Notions of right and left have been muddled througout Russian history. The Soviet Communists professed left-wing slogans, but practised right-wing ideologies, embracing a neo-feudalist and unfree order. Russia’s politicians continue that duality today. For Poel Karp, what Russia desperately needs
Occupying power while showing no intent to take possession of it, faithful servant Dmitry Medvedev could not have been more obliging to his master. Yet handing back power in such circumstances will be painful for the still-young president. His embitterment may yet play out in interesting ways, wri
