Alexei Navalny was in defiant mood last Tuesday, as he waited for his inevitable sentence. He made a heart gesture for his wife, Yulia, who was sitting at the back of Moscow’s city courtroom. Navalny smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t be sad! Everything is going to be all right,” he yelled at her. She… Read More The extraordinary power struggle between Vladimir Putin and Alexei Navalny
Navalny, who was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison earlier this week, said in a statement posted on his Instagram account that “iron doors slammed behind my back with a deafening sound, but I feel like a free man. Because I feel confident I’m right. Thanks to your support. Thanks to my… Read More Navalny urges Russians from jail to overcome their fear / Putin Resorts to Jailing Journalists for Retweeting Jokes
This Is Not Propaganda is an exploration of the wreckage of liberal democracy and a search for the signs of its revival. What can save us? Reading, for a start. In Beijing, Pomeranstev meets Angela Wu, who researches emerging technology and cultural change at New York University. She travelled across China interviewing readers of a blogging site called… Read More Book review: Peter Pomerantsev's 'This Is Not Propaganda' is quietly frightening. By Steve Bloomfield
A Moscow court has sentenced Alexei Navalny to two years and eight months in a prison colony in a landmark decision for Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on the country’s leading opposition figure. The move triggered marches in Moscow and the arrest of more than 1,000 protesters. Navalny, who has accused the Russian president and his allies… Read More Alexei Navalny: 1,000 arrested after protests over jailing of Russian opposition leader
Nine days ago, Alexey Navalny returned to Russia – and changed the country’s politics forever. The opposition leader had been in Germany since August 2020, recovering from what is now internationally recognised as an assassination attempt by the Kremlin (which President Vladimir Putin denies). But while there, he was far from idle. In December, he… Read More Thomas Rowley: How Alexey Navalny changed Russian politics forever
NB: The Russian people have fought for freedom and democracy for over a century, in 1915-21; in the deadly struggle against Nazi invasion; and again in the aftermath of glasnost. Putin is the inheritor of the Russian autocratic tradition, he moved easily from the KGB and membership of the Communist Party to becoming a Russian… Read More Andrew Roth – The problem is Putin: protesters throng Russia's streets to support jailed Navalny / Russia’s courageous and historic protests against Putinism / Video sensations
This database includes all the violent, premature or unexplained deaths of journalists in Russia as recorded by the country’s own media monitors since 1993. It also includes journalists and media staff who have disappeared over the same period. A report entitled Partial Justice: An investigation into the deaths of journalists in Russia, 1993-2009 has been published by the… Read More JOURNALISTS IN RUSSIA, 1993 TO 2009: Deaths and Disappearances
NB: The Russian head of state speaks like a cheap street thug. The USSR may have faded away, but the KGB lives on. He and his chum in the White House have a lot in common: a mafia mentality. DS Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed Thursday that opposition politician Alexey Navalny “is enjoying the support of… Read More Putin says if Russia wanted to kill opposition leader Navalny, it would have 'finished' the job
After the truth-shower 