The Moscow Times

Continued protests in Russia will likely lead to violence or chaotic change, according to a new study ordered by the former finance minister.

After Monday's announcement that historian Vladimir Medinsky was appointed the culture minister, critics quickly labeled him the new propaganda minister. Medinsky's academic ethics and historical distortions may raise serious questions, but for the Kremlin, he has three important attributes that are much more important: He is a model United Russia leader, a firm Putin loyalist and a skilled sophist.

A United Russia parliamentarian has asked investigators to check opposition leader Alexei Navalny's Yandex.Money accounts for evidence of money laundering.

The number of female ministers in the new government has dropped to just two from three in the previous Cabinet — a decline that sparked much discussion Tuesday as to why so few women play a role in Russian politics.

The former head of the Federal Youth Agency said Tuesday that the government has financed a liberal-leaning news outlet founded by Ilya Varlamov, one of the country's most popular bloggers.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev officially joined United Russia on Tuesday, becoming Russia's first prime minister to ever hold party membership.

The former head of the Leningrad region assembly was nominated Tuesday to become governor of the Karelia republic, a move seen as another attempt to replace a regional governor before direct gubernatorial elections go into effect this fall.

Even as President Vladimir Putin unveiled a new Cabinet on Monday, my hopes had already been all but shattered that we would see a slightly more liberal Putin during what is effectively his fourth consecutive term in power.

Vasily Yakemenko, the founder of the pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi, announced plans Monday to create a new political party designed to attract the young, disaffected, middle-class voters who were drawn to the opposition protests.

New Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky, a historian distant from the cultural world, is perhaps best known for writing a series of pro-Kremlin books called "Myths about Russia" — a role that is prompting calls his title be changed to propaganda minister.

President Vladimir Putin on Friday appointed a confidant of billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov as the acting governor of the Irkutsk region, where the metals magnate has a large gold-mining operation and other businesses.

Sending a clear signal that loyalty will outrank experience in making government appointments, President Vladimir Putin has nominated a tank factory employee who once promised to target opposition protesters in Moscow as his new envoy to the Urals Federal District.

The Kremlin has compiled a dossier on the 126 members of the Public Chamber that measures their degree of loyalty and whether they would be willing to act on Kremlin orders.

Russia faces domestic fuel shortages after authorities restricted the transport of crude oil by rail, forcing several refiners to cut production.

If Putin was seen as getting too close to Obama at Camp David, it would have been a blow to his tough-guy image as someone who stands up to the United States. At a time when the protest movement is gaining momentum in Moscow and other cities, Putin could ill afford to be seen schmoozing with Obama — whose administration, in Putin's own words, serves as the opposition's main sponsor.