· July, 2011

Stories about Russia from July, 2011

Poland: Smolensk Report Blames Both Polish and Russian Sides

  31 July 2011

On July 29, Poland presented its final report on the 2010 Smolensk plane crash, in which 96 people died, including the then president of Poland Lech Kaczynski. While putting the major blame on the Polish pilot's error, the report also pointed at the fault of the defective lighting at Smolensk airport and Russian air controllers.

Russia: US Support of Opposition?

RuNet Echo  31 July 2011

LJ user grad46 (Maxim Petrovich) claims [ru] that several Russian opposition groups are funded by US-interests. Until recently an opposition activist himself, Petrovich publishes corroborating documentation, accuses several leading opposition activists of taking American money, and is interviewed [ru] on the issue by Russian newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets.

Russia: News as Rap

RuNet Echo  30 July 2011

Edmund Downie at Foreign Policy Passport reports that Russian president Dmitri Medvedev is much impressed by news agency's RIA-Novosti introduction of news in the form of musical rap info [ru].

Poland-Russia: Passing Out Blame for Kaczynski Plane Crash

  30 July 2011

Streetwise Professor comments on the Polish report about last year's plane crash that killed the country's president, and goes on to argue that, whereas Polish pilots where mostly to blame, Russian air-traffic control was probably also to blame.

Russia-USA: 20 Years Since START I

  30 July 2011

Hans Kristensen at FAS Strategic Security Blog commemorates the 20th anniversary of START 1, the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty beween the Soviet Union and the USA curtailing the number of nuclear missiles.

Bulgaria-Russia: Refinery Shutdown Causes Oil Crisis

  28 July 2011

John Helmer of Dances With Bears reports that a Bulgarian government-imposed shutdown of the Lukoil-owned Burgas refinery threatens to create an oil crisis in the country, and goes on to describe the political game behind the crisis.

Russia: Summer Brings Death

  28 July 2011

Vadim Nikitin at Foreign Policy Association observes that death tolls in Russia seem to rise during the summer, from terrorism, accidents, disasters and other reasons.

Russia: Megafon/Yandex Text Message Leak

RuNet Echo  26 July 2011

Svetlana Gladkova of Profy writes that “one of the largest Russian mobile carriers [Megafon] and the leading Russian search engine [Yandex] need to explain quite a lot of things to their users […] due to an unspeakable data leak as thousands of SMS messages sent via Megafon website got publicly...

Russia: Bloggers Find Street Shooter

RuNet Echo  26 July 2011

Bloggers across the Russian Internet were quick to respond with posts and information after well-known photo-blogger Dmitry Ternovsky was shot at recently on a highway in the southeast of Moscow. Ashley Cleek details the story.

Belarus: East and West and Nothing in Between?

RuNet Echo  25 July 2011

"East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet." This chronically misused Kipling phrase seems to catch the realities for an increasing number of Belarusians, who, waking to a wild and hostile world, are asking: "Who cares about Belarus?"

Russia: Upsides to Tandemocracy

  25 July 2011

Edward Lozansky at Russia Blog argues that so called Tandemocracy – power sharing – between Russia's President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin, on the whole has had positive effects for the country, not least in foreign policy.

Russia: Questioning Emigration

  24 July 2011

Anatoly Karlin of Sublime Oblivion questions whether there is a second wave of Russian emigration, instead seeing this as a Russophobic myth and continues this theme by posting a translation of Nikolai Starikov's blog post [RU] “How liberal myths are created.”

Russia: Medvedev's Judicial Reform

  23 July 2011

Gordon M. Hahn of Russia: Other Points of View argues that, despite the Khodorkovsky case, the Russian legal system is improving as a result of President Medvedev's judicial reform work.

Russia: “Double-Entry Bookkeeping” in Moscow State University

RuNet Echo  22 July 2011

Blogger Vladimir Varfolomeev writes [ru] about strange occurrences during the entry exams to the prestigious Journalism Department of the Moscow State University. Varfolomeev brings up a story of the entrant who received the highest possible mark for the interview. After the interview, however, the mark was significantly reduced by a...

Russia: Envisioning the “Cloud Democracy” Utopia

RuNet Echo  22 July 2011

'Cloud Democracy' is the title of the new book written by Leonid Volkov and Fyodor Krasheninnikov, two political bloggers from the Urals region of Russia. The book displays the authors' vision on how a system of 'future' democratic governance can be built with the help of online tools.