Robert Coalson worked as a correspondent for RFE/RL from 2002 to 2024.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is taking on a new role as the head of a government panel on the film industry. Though some filmmakers are pleased by the government's attention, others fear that Putin's oversight means a return to communist-style state command over this crucial art form.
Recent demonstrations across Russia are one sign of growing social tensions resulting from the global economic crisis. However, opposition political groups are having a hard time translating the public's concerns into calls for change.
Many influential Russian conservatives deny the "universality" of the concept of human rights and argue that each culture must define rights on the basis of its own traditions and national values.
The fact that the Kremlin is working at least as feverishly on sweeping political reforms as it is on coping with the financial crisis creates the impression that the ruling elite in Russia is grappling with two crises simultaneously. As Putin asserted, one thing is clear: "As the party with a parliamentary majority, Unified Russia bears the full burden of responsibility for what is happening in the country."
The split last week of the Union of Rightist Forces and the resignation of its leader came as no surprise. The collapse of the liberal wing of Russian politics since the mid-1990s has been truly staggering, and the latest developments merely signal the completion of that long-running drama. What is surprising, however, is the intense attention the Kremlin has focused on undermining the party, which, after all, got less than 1 percent of the vote in the last Duma elections.
When Russia pulled out of a meeting to discuss new sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, it was widely interpreted as a tit-for-tat response to U.S. moves following Moscow's conflict with Georgia. But it also fits into Moscow's overall policy on Iran, a policy that views the Iran dispute as an inseparable part of the larger fabric of global affairs rather than merely as a regional matter or even a security issue.
Moscow has its own concerns in a financial crisis of the current sort, and its own tools for containing it. The Kremlin's behavior now will provide essential information as to the nature of the petrostate, which is a relatively new and untested political model.
Despite riding a wave of apparent popularity following the military conflict with Georgia, the Kremlin continues to wrestle with its legitimacy problem. The fact remains that -- despite appeals to nationalism, despite assertions that the country is surrounded by ravenous enemies, despite trumped-up "popular" movements and demonstrations -- Russia's strictly managed democracy is not capable of producing real legitimacy. And the more the seams of that management show, the less legitimate the count
In the modern world, wars are won and lost as much in the minds of global public opinion as on the battlefield. Even as the fighting between Russia and Georgia has raged in South Ossetia and other parts of Georgia, a fierce -- if uneven -- media battle has also unfolded. Each side is eager to establish its narrative of the situation and unfolding events.
Ever since the 2006 legislative elections in the United States, the Bush administration has been declaring the president's intention to "sprint to the finish" of his term. Moreover, U.S. presidents usually begin to think seriously about their historical legacies during their final months in office, and Bush is clearly no exception.
Russia in the era of President Vladimir Putin has increasingly presented a challenge to the "unity" and "community of values" of Western democracies not only in terms of its actions, but on the plane of ideas as well.
The managed political scene in Russia is so moribund these days one can even hear a mouse roar. And that is what has happened in recent weeks, as the once-vaunted Communist Party has bared its teeth. Its faction in the Duma is the only one that is not directly choreographed from the Kremlin.
Recent talk of return to the direct election of governors set Russia's chattering classes off. But once the Kremlin rejected the idea, governors were quick to get in line to show their loyalty.
Another government commission or another "code of behavior" is unlikely to make up for an opaque, monopolized, clan-based political system.
The meeting in Moscow this weekend of Russia's opposition National Assembly -- if the authorities allow it -- seems either hopelessly quixotic or comically pathetic.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin will be responsible for industry, energy, and natural resources. His appointment is perhaps the clearest signal that the second age of Vladimir Putin will be an intensely amplified version of the first.
The official line on the transfer of power is continuity. But Russia's "managed democracy" appears to be entering a new phase of even stricter management and even less democracy.
There's been a lot of talk about possible future crises in Russia -- be they political, constitutional, or economic. But a lone distinguished voice, Sergei Kovalyov, is talking about a present-day predicament: Russia's "shameful moral crisis."
Kremlin politicos have long been masters of winning elections. But the end of political competition in Russia has allowed the Putin administration to achieve new levels of brazen falsification on a national scale.
When independent experts released their recent assessment of media coverage of the Russian presidential election, there were few surprises. It turns out that eventual winner Medvedev was a prominent fixture.
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