Fragments of a blog
Fragments of a blog
The Boris Nemtsov memorial march, which has recently ended in Moscow, was impressively attended. Despite the short notice and the bleak weather, an unbelievably large number of people took part. It’s only my feeling at this point but estimates are already being released from various quarters. Two…
Boris Nemtsov was assassinated last night in Moscow, on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge near the Kremlin. Nemtsov was the only Russian opposition leader who had held both a major elected public office, as governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region (appointed 1991, elected 1995,…
Apart from discussions of whether the US should make use of its military potential in certain parts of the world, there is also disagreement on where it should do so, and in what order of priority. I have heard calls…
Matthew Schofield reported for McClatchy last week: A Russian newspaper claims to have an official government strategy document outlining the invasion of Ukraine that was prepared weeks before the Ukrainian government collapsed last year… …Muratov [Novaya Gazeta editor-in-chief] said that……
Actually, Russian media outlets have published interviews with Russian soldiers who have fought on the separatists’ side in Donbass. For instance, this illustrated account of a 22-year-old (ex-)marine from Sakhalin Island appeared on the site of Radio City Sakhalin in late January. More recently, the…
On the subject of the Sochi opening ceremony, I’d like to quote from one of Nabokov’s brilliant short stories, Tyrants Destroyed: The festivities were spreading outside my window, the sun transformed the blue snowdrifts into sparkling down, and one could…
In December 2012 judge Tatiana Neverova acquitted a senior prison official accused of causing the death of Sergei Magnitsky.* In December 2013, she was asked to transfer from jail to house arrest a paralyzed man accused of a non-violent crime, fraud.…
Putin has commuted Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s sentence. According to the Russian prison service, he has been freed. Putin toadies say Khodorkovsky’s clemency petition implies admission of guilt. Of course it doesn’t. His mother is reported to be seriously ill – she’s…
Nine years ago, I thought it was great that Ukraine still had public politics while Russia had almost none but I had little enthusiasm for any of the particular players in the Ukrainian scene. Apart from the brothers Klichko, I…
As of this afternoon, I believe 29 of the 30 Greenpeace activists from the Arctic Sunrise had been granted bail and 28 had been freed. One Briton was still in jail on a technicality. They can even leave Russia pending…
The August 2013 trial of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his friend Pyotr Ofitserov was, and the re-trial of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, which began on Sept. 30, are likely to be adversely and perversely affected by findings…
Venezuela, Bolivia or Nicaragua? Although it’s landlocked, I’d choose Bolivia for the healthy high-altitude climate in its Andean regions. A snow den as it were.