State-controlled media reveled in embarrassing the U.S. over an alleged attempt to recruit a Russian intelligence agent, highlighting the summoning of U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul (right) to the Russian Foreign Ministry to receive a formal protest.
“In the Russian elite …
“The identification of Tamerlan and Dzhokar Tsarnaev (right) as suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings focuses attention on the troubled history of Chechnya and the legacy of its recent wars with Russia,” writes Miriam Lanskoy, the co-author of …
Russia is caught in a dangerously status quo, says a leading analyst. The system cannot be changed from above, but the opposition lacks the strength to force change from below.
Russia today sought to justify its “provocative” expulsion of the U.S. Agency for International Development by claiming that the U.S. government agency was deploying funds to influence the outcome of elections.
“We are talking about attempts through the …
The Kremlin’s assault on civil society and dissent is nowhere more vicious than in the Caucasus, where rights groups are expressing concern at fresh attempts to instigate criminal proceedings against Igor Kalyapin (above), chairman of the Committee against Torture and head …
Russia will lead the resistance to the “cult of violence” permeating international relations, Vladimir Putin said today.
His comments have a dual purpose, analysts suggest: to delegitimize foreign intervention in support of democracy or human rights, and to …
Does the experience of post-Soviet transitions bear lessons for the Arab Spring? A leading human rights activist considers how “to make change stick” after the revolution.
“Twenty years ago, in July 1991, I was poised to start a job …
Russia watchers will have breathed a sigh of relief at Vladimir Putin’s assurance that he does not plan to revive the Soviet Union with his plans for a Eurasia federation. But it seems that the plan may have an …
The violent conflicts in that plague Chechnya and the North Caucasus should not be portrayed a local front in a global war, says Miriam Lanskoy, director for Russia and Eurasia at the National Endowment for Democracy. Moscow’s brutality, incompetence …
It may be that Russia will reach an accommodation with the Caucasus sooner than even Zbigniew Brzezinski had in mind.
A growing number of Russians are concluding that the economic, political and human costs of retaining the North Caucasus …