 |
Akram Murtazaev, Moscow |
|
| EXPLOSIONS IN RUSSIA |
16 April 2010
|
|
Explosions take place in Russia again. The last week of March started with terrorist acts at the Moscow metro stations which were followed by blasts in the Dagestani city of Kizlar. The horror spread from the metro to the whole city.
|
|
| GAS CONFLICT BETWEEN RUSSIA AND UKRAINE |
14 January 2009
|
|
The result of the Russia-Ukraine gas conflict, which broke out by tradition on New Year's Eve, is quite predictable – the Russian gas will be supplied to the European consumers but Gazprom’s reputation has been seriously tarnished. In one of the most severe winters Europe does not receive gas, and though Russia tries to shift the blame onto Ukraine (its state collapse is evident), Moscow is also responsible for the conflict.
|
|
| UNDER THE VEIL OF CONSTITUTION |
01 December 2006
|
|
A man’s death is no longer treated with sorrow but is accompanied by ruthless interpretations and scandals. That is the way the story goes with Anna Politkovskaya and Sasha Litvinenko. Murder of the latter featured the headlines last week.
|
|
| LAME DUCK A LA RUSSE |
16 November 2006
|
|
The democratic wing of the United Russia party keeps on rectifying the Law on elections. The recently proposed amendments to the Russian Federal Law on basic guarantees of electoral rights threaten to lock up the vox populi into one throat. And you know whose.
|
|
| PUTIN AND THE KIDS |
17 May 2006
|
|
Nowadays Russia is savoring the President’s annual address to the Federal Assembly. It’s not that this speech had any essential significance, as no one actually remembers all the previous Putin’s addresses, but what everyone knows for sure, is that these addresses never introduced any differences to their lives.
|
|
| NO ONE APOLOGIZED |
06 April 2006
|
|
The goal of the migration policy, actively discussed in the State Duma, is pretty settled–considering disastrous population decrease, the citizenship in the first place should be granted to people with a “culturally proximate to the Russians”, or in other words, “our compatriots”.
|
|
| BACK TO THE USSR? |
14 October 2005
|
|
Russia began its march to Central Asia not the day Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin celebrated his birthday, but the day the first guns had banged in the city of Andijan. Unlike the Aurora cruiser’s salvos the Andijan shots were not dry, but alike the legendary cruiser’s salvos they marked the beginning of a new era. This time it was the new era for Tashkent.
|
|
| EXITS EVERYWHERE |
16 September 2005
|
|
Care for people in Russia has unexpectedly reached an exceedingly high level. Public in fear of another trick has even got nervous: What made the authorities forget about their own needs, and all of a sudden become preoccupied with the emotional state of people and welfare?
|
|
| MOSCOW’S FAILURE |
12 July 2005
|
|
If Moscow had won the competition to host the Olympic Games in 2012 it would have been terrible. Fortunately, everything turned out all right. London has become the winner.
|
|
| AFFECTED MIND |
17 May 2005
|
|
Now, any crime is taken as something like “pleasing to God” - a blasphemy as it may seem. Anyway, terrorism, as a rule, is considered to be Islamic and the terrorists are to be Allah’s warriors. Not all confessions arouse such a mistrust, and this only confirms that the war of adjectives exists and it is skillfully instigated either by stupidity or improvidence.
|
|
|
|
 |
Our authors
|
Geopolitical influence is an expensive thing. The Soviet Union realized that well supporting the Communist regimes and movements all over the world including Cuba and North Korea. The current Russian authorities also understood that when they agreed that Ukraine would not pay Russia $40 billion for the gas in return for extension of the lease allowing Russia's Black Sea Fleet to be stationed in the Crimea.
|
|
|
|
The case of Kurmanbek Bakiyev is consistent with the logic of the Belarusian authorities’ actions towards the plane crash near Smolensk. The decisions not to demonstrate the “Katyn” film and not to announce the mourning were made emotionally, to spite Moscow and Warsaw, without thinking about their consequences and about reaction of the society and the neighbouring countries.
|
|
|
|
|
Explosions take place in Russia again. The last week of March started with terrorist acts at the Moscow metro stations which were followed by blasts in the Dagestani city of Kizlar. The horror spread from the metro to the whole city.
|
|
|
|
|
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych symbolically selected Brussels as his first foreign visit upon taking the oath of office in what can only be seen as an exercise in public relations. The new government of Prime Minister Mykola Azarov headed straight for Moscow shortly thereafter with the sole intention of cutting a deal.
|
|
|
|
|
The protest actions, which the Russian extraparliamentary opposition had scheduled for March 20, were held as planned, they surprised or frightened nobody. Just as it had been expected, the activists of many organizations supporting the Wrath Day took to the streets… but saw there only the policemen, journalists and each other.
|
|
|
|
|
As I write, angry demonstrations continue in Tehran and elsewhere in the Islamic Republic of Iran, over what the young demonstrators perceive as the blatant rigging of the presidential election to keep Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power for another five years. Reports suggest at least eight protestors have been killed by police.
|
|
|
|
|
The cri… no the word will not be uttered. Now that President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin have finally allowed themselves to belatedly use the word, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for me to spit it out of these lips. It’s c-this and c-that. If there was C-Span in Russia then it would be c-ing all day and all night long.
|
|
|
|
|
