Robert Coalson worked as a correspondent for RFE/RL from 2002 to 2024.
December's Duma elections will be merely the opening act for the main bit of political theater looming in the spring.
Many believe the Kremlin wants a two-party system based on the two groups it backs, but one of them is dangerously close to not making it into the next Duma.
Two pro-Kremlin parties have formidable advantages in the race for the December polls -- lots of cash, political support, and favorable media attention.
The elite political newspaper offers a promising media model that falls between direct state control and the self-serving irresponsibility of some of Russia's media moguls.
The mixed assessments of Boris Yeltsin's legacy emerging since his death on April 23 reflect uncertainty about his times and the man himself.
Stability, but at what price? (AFP) April 11, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- "Establishing stability" appears prominently on almost anyone's list of the achievements of Russian President Vladimir Putin's two terms in office.
Switzerland's 3 October decision to extradite former Russian Atomic Energy Minister Yevgenii Adamov to the United States was not unexpected. However, it has unleashed a firestorm in Russian political circles and the media, threatening to become a major issue in U.S.-Russian relations for some time to come.
Yevgenii Kiselev in 2000 Yevgenii Kiselev, editor of the liberal weekly "Moskovskie novosti," confirmed on 4 July that he had stepped down following months of controversy at the paper. At the same time, it was confirmed the self-exiled Menatep shareholder Leonid Nevzlin had sold the paper to Ukrainian businessman Vadim Rabinovich.
Shamil Basaev (left) in the Budennovsk hospital where more than 1,800 people were held hostage Prague, 14 June 2005 (RFE/RL) -- The Stavropol Krai town of Budennovsk today marked the 10th anniversary of a 1995 raid on the town by Chechen fighters led by radical field commander Shamil Basaev, RFE/RL's Russian Service reported.
Russian President Vladimir Putin 8 June 2005 (RFE/RL) -- The 31 May resignation of North Ossetia President Aleksandr Dzasokhov and the 2 June requests for reconfirmation submitted by Ingushetian President Murat Zyazikov and Rostov Oblast Governor Vladimir Chub means that 24 of the Russian Federation's 89 regions will soon have undergone a change of administration under the new system adopted at the beginning of this year. In response to the wave of terrorism last summer that culminated in the Beslan school hostage taking in September, President Vladimir Putin replaced the direct election of regional executive-branch heads with a system under which regional legislatures confirm candidates who are nominated by the president.
Prague, 31 May 2005 (RFE/RL) -- The legal team representing former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovskii has vowed to appeal the conviction and nine-year prison term imposed on the former Russian oil tycoon by a Moscow court today.
Demonstrators will need new permits to keep up with the verdict's slow pace After five days of reading the verdict in the case of former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovskii and his fellow defendants, the judges of Moscow's Meshchanskii Raion court on 20 May were less than one-third of the way through the 1,000-page document. Moreover, they had not yet issued a single solid decision, although all observers agree that the language and tone of the verdict indicates the three defendants will almost certainly be convicted on all charges.
The U.S. and Georgian presidents greet the crowd at Tbilisi's Freedom Square on 10 May 10 May 2005 (RFE/RL) -- U.S. President George W. Bush's swing through the former Soviet states of Latvia, Russia, and Georgia was filled with lofty rhetoric on the universal human striving for freedom, as well as with praise for the so-called colored revolutions that have swept through the region.
Among the many amendments to Russia's law on elections that were passed in their crucial second reading by the State Duma on 15 April is one that would ban the formation of electoral blocs to contest federal, regional, or local elections.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Zhukov created something of a media sensation on 30 March when he appeared at a Moscow conference and acknowledged that the spread of HIV/AIDS in Russia has become a threat to the country's security and development. The theme of the conference was public-private initiatives to combat the epidemic and one of the main projects discussed was a $200 million, three-year, public-service campaign by Russian media to raise HIV/AIDS awareness.
Is Putin stoking anti-Americanism for domestic political purposes? Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, who is one of President Vladimir Putin's closest confidants and is regularly mentioned as a possible successor to Putin in 2008, made some uncharacteristic political statements in a 1 March interview with "Moskovskii komsomolets." "Only democrats, with their split personalities, could believe that we might get help from abroad," Ivanov said. "Nobody will help us except ourselves. Therefore we should be powerful and capable of guaranteeing our national security in any situation."'
Almost as soon as President Vladimir Putin put forth his long-planned reform to eliminate the direct election of regional executive-branch heads last September, observers have been speculating that directly elected mayors would be the next to come into the Kremlin's sights.
Journalists in Bryansk Oblast in recent weeks have raised the charge that the oblast administration is conducting a "purge" of newspaper editors whose political views conflict with those of Governor Nikolai Denin.
Sergei Stepashin (file photo) Although President Vladimir Putin re-nominated Sergei Stepashin to his post as Audit Chamber chairman on 27 January, the political elites in Russia were caught off-guard when Stepashin told a meeting of the Duma's Motherland faction on 18 January that he had submitted his resignation.
President Yushchenko shakes hands with Russian Ambassador to Ukraine Viktor Chernomyrdin in Moscow as President Putin (far right) and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov look on Newly inaugurated Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko traveled to Moscow on 24 January to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a gesture designed to mollify Moscow's concerns that Kyiv has turned decisively to the West. By keeping a campaign promise that his first official trip abroad would be to Russia, Yushchenko helped Putin save face after a Ukrainian election campaign in which the Kremlin -- and Putin personally -- threw complete support behind former Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych.
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