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Domestic

“I was wrong about Putin” says Zyuganov

August 24, 2007

Perennial campaigner Gennady Zyuganov – boss of the Communist Party, and the John Major of Russian politics – took a break from running for the Presidency in 2004.  But now he’s back, and a cert to stand for the Presidency in 2008. 
Here, Zyuganov gives a fascinating interview with Moskovsky Komsomolets, where he takes great pains distance himself from Vladimir Putin:
Question: [...]

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Great Russia denied registration as political party

July 25, 2007

The Federal Registration Service has refused to register Great Russia as a political party.
Some analysts had been predicting that Great Russia, founded earlier this year by Dmitry Rogozin, the former leader of Rodina, is a nationalist party, would be capable of winning the 7% of the vote required to give it a presence in the Duma.  Others [...]

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New Litvinenko book

April 2, 2007

The Litvinenko File by Martin Sixsmith is released in the UK on Monday.
It’s one of what is sure to be a long line of books about Litvinenko over the coming months, although probably one of the more interesting ones, if only because its author actually bothered to travel to Moscow and interview people who are [...]

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Explosion at McDonalds in St Petersburg

February 19, 2007

A bomb exploded in a McDonalds restaurant in St Petersburg last night, injuring six people.
The police have ruled out terrorism, and are calling it “hooliganism”, linking it to an explosion last week in a St Petersburg supermarket. St Petersburg based blogger Lex Libertas, who lives just down the road from the restaurant, agrees:
It was probably [...]

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Another ‘independent’ news anchor goes off-air

November 27, 2005

Mosnews reports that REN TV news anchor Olga Romanova has been ordered off the air.
She said she was being sidelined after complaining on air on Wednesday that management was blocking news items that might anger top officials.
These included a report that prosecutors had dropped charges against the son of Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov. [...]

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Closed cities and the Democratic Deficit

October 6, 2005

If you thought that the demise of the Soviet Union meant the demise of closed, or secret cities, then you’d be wrong. Today, it is thought that there are up to forty closed cities (also referred as ZATO’s, or Zakrytye Administrativno-Territorial’nye Obrazovaniia) in Russia, although the Russian government will only confirm the existence of [...]

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