Fragments of a blog
Fragments of a blog
The Kremlin should not mind at all a politically vulnerable, ailing person in the White House. Secretary Clinton fits the description perfectly, assuming that her digital trail and health are truly the sad affair her detractions claim they are. Besides, she is an intelligent, hence intelligible, machine with quite…
More notes on last Sunday’s Duma election in Russia. The elephant in the room. Alexei Navalny – the de-facto opposition leader in my view, although not in everyone else’s – was barred from running, as was his party. The silence…
The Moscow Times on yesterday’s Duma election: Half of the 450-seat State Duma is elected through party lists. United Russia has so far claimed 52 [54 with 90% of precincts counted] percent of that contest. Another 225 seats in the Duma…
An interesting story in The New York Times by Zeynep Tufekci, Adventures in the Trump Twittersphere. It was actually the author’s name that caught my eye and made me start reading. The first name is a variation on the female Arabic name Zaynab. The…
Baltiysk, formerly Pillau, is Russia’s westernmost town and home to a naval base, a seaport and an oil terminal. Together with much smaller towns and villages, it makes up a district (rayon) with 36,000 residents. The district held a local election last…
The SNP has won 56 out of the 59 seats in Scotland, a 95% success rate. Ninety-seven and a half years ago, Sinn Féin won 70 out of the 75 seats in the 26 counties that would make up the…
Ukraine’s President Poroshenko has fired the minister of defense, a career policeman who started service in the late Soviet Union and rose through the ranks in a post-Soviet environment. Not to deny Heletey’s achievements as minister, I wonder whether a graduate of a Soviet…
Around seven thousand Russian regions and municipalities, including Moscow, held local elections on Sunday. Alexey Navalny, the de-facto leader of the Russian opposition, polled about 30% in the Moscow mayoral election based on exit polls. This is way above the…