An article in The Atlantic by foreign affairs commentator Michael Weiss argues that the case against opposition leader Alexei Navalny is an example of how President Vladimir Putin's Russia is not a normal country and no longer pretends to be.
An article in The Economist says there is something grimly instructive about Sergei Magnitsky’s story. In a stark, almost cartoonish way, it has demonstrated that Russia is run for the benefit of a ruling clique, rather than in the interests of its people.
A blog post in The Financial Times by emerging markets editor Stefan Wagstyl argues that the posthumous trial of late whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky matters, even to hard-headed investors. Although many foreign investors will say it has nothing to with them, they are wrong. It is a demonstration of power, not of justice.
An article in The Economist attempts to interpret a sudden crackdown on extravagant officials in Russia, arguing that the recent purges of former State Duma deputies Vladimir Pekhtin and Anatoly Lomakin signal a shift in Russia’s politics.
A blog post in The Financial Times by Sergei Alekashenko, a professor of Moscow’s Higher School of Economics, examines whether President Vladimir Putin will finally start to get serious on reform in Russia.
In an opinion editorial in The New York Times Vadim Nikitin, a freelance journalist and blogger, gives his analysis of French actor Gerard Depardieu’s decision to accept Russian citizenship.
In an opinion editorial in The New York Times, human rights veteran Lyudmila Alexeyeva, chairwoman of the Moscow Helsinki Group, comments that Russia has developed an amazing, vibrant civil society, but the political system in the past decade has not kept pace. The Putin years produced a stable but brittle and highly corrupt political system.
An article in The Times by foreign correspondent Roger Boyes comments that President Vladimir Putin has announced a raft of new measures to shake up Russia that are a recycling of Soviet-era ideas. The Russian president’s plans are dismaying the United States administration.
An article in The Economist says that President Vladimir Putin seems increasingly isolated and out of touch at the top. Compared with his early years in charge when he relied on economic aides like German Gref and Alexei Kudrin, Putin has less faith in the counsel of those around him and more certainty in his own judgment.
The weekly magazine The New Yorker publishes a blog post by Masha Lipman, the editor of the Carnegie Moscow Centre’s ‘Pro et Contra’ journal, which decries the corruption in circles close to President Vladimir Putin.
