· June, 2010

Stories about Russia from June, 2010

Russia, U.S.: The “Spy Ring” Story

RuNet Echo  30 June 2010

A selection of posts on the “Russian spy ring” story: Julia Ioffe at The Daily Beast; A Good Treaty; Yelena Osipova at Global Chaos; Mark Adomanis at True/Slant; Vadim Nikitin at FPA's Russia blog; Dina Fainberg at The Dustbin of History; Catherine Fitzpatrick at Minding Russia; Windows to Russia; Eugene...

Russia, US: “Burger Diplomacy”

  28 June 2010

Vadim Nikitin wonders if the Medvedev-Obama meeting is a sign that “[…] the Russian President, for so long considered a mere window dressing to Prime Ministerial rule, might stick around longer than Putin might like?” Robert Amsterdam writes that “burger diplomacy” is “[…] an apt epithet for a relationship that...

Russia: Chechen President Launches Blog

RuNet Echo  27 June 2010

Ramzan Kadyrov [EN], president of the Chechen Republic [EN], launched a blog ya-kadyrov [RUS] at Livejournal. In his first post Kadyrov writes that he is “a sociable and to the limit outspoken person”, and that he “hopes to develop friendship and discuss various events with his readers”. There is no option to...

Russia: Bloggers React to President Medvedev's Silicon Valley Tour

RuNet Echo  26 June 2010

For the first 24 hours, Dmitry Medvedev's @KremlinRussia Twitter account provided a unique opportunity to send unmoderated comments to the Russian president. Then all the comments were removed, and the era of the Russian unmoderated online democracy ended. Gregory Asmolov reviews Russian bloggers' reactions to the president's visit to California.

Russia: Charges Against Alexanyan Dropped

  25 June 2010

Robert Amsterdam reports that “Russian prosecutors have finally dropped their case against Yukos lawyer Vasily Aleksanyan”: “But I don't really see this as a sign of clemency or change, or a sudden recognition of judicial independence. Russia just admitted that it held an innocent individual for two years for no...

Russia: Cocks and Prayers

  25 June 2010

Sean Guillory of Sean's Russia Blog writes about a “Prayer for the President” and “a kind of re-embrace of Tsarist symbolism” that seems to be taking place in Russia. Julia Ioffe writes at True/Slant about “the Cosmic Cock of War” that was painted on one of St. Petersburg's bridges “in...

Russia, Belarus, Moldova: Gas Wars

  24 June 2010

Updates on the gas dispute between Russia and Belarus – at Leopolis, Jamestown Foundation Blog, and BelarusDigest. A May 28 post on Moldova's relationship with Gazprom – at RFE/RL's Transmission.

Russia: Police Would Like to ‘Cooperate’ With Bloggers

RuNet Echo  23 June 2010

Valery Gribakin, head of the public relations department of the Russian Ministry of Interior, expressed a will to meet with top-ranking bloggers in order to discuss ways of possible cooperation, rsn.ru reported [RUS]. Bloggers have lots of questions to the police but don't expect the answers, sadly comments anti-corruption blogger...

Russia: President Medvedev Visits Silicon Valley

RuNet Echo  23 June 2010

Russian president Dmitri Medvedev, during the widely discussed tour to the Silicon Valley, dined with Arnold Schwarzenegger [EN], visited Apple [RUS], officially started [EN] an account on Twitter [RUS] at the company's headquarters, and refused [EN] to meet with Google‘s creator Sergey Brin. The Russian blogosphere reacted [RUS] with a number of...

Russia: Analysis of Hacker Attacks On Bloggers

RuNet Echo  20 June 2010

Over the last five years, more than 40 RuNet bloggers have become targets of hacker attacks, most of which were carried out by a group of hackers named The Brigade of Hell. The hackers' targets have been both political and commercial bloggers.

Blogger Compares Russian Army to American Prison

RuNet Echo  19 June 2010

Blogger mr_bison analyses [RUS] Russian military statistics. The results are shocking: Russian army is more dangerous environment for a human being than a prison in the US. Plus, almost every fifth death in the army is a suicide, another sad military fact says.