... popular comments beneath the piece on the business daily's website expressed disbelief that Putin could so lightly admit serious structural problems. "That's enough of producing slogans," wrote a user identified as AVTor, "Twelve years of autocratic management is more than enough to get some results."
Guriev said Putin did not seem to be addressing his usual audience. "This is not a message for his electorate, it's a message for liberal protesters in Moscow," he said.
After...
... excessive focus on the Middle East and its maintenance of an unnecessary military presence in Europe.
Tempered by the U.S. public's fatigue with overseas adventures, the United States' missionary zeal to save the world from the wickedness of faraway autocrats will be reduced substantially. But this does not necessarily mean that China will automatically take over ground from which Washington withdraws. Despite the recent cuts, the U.S. defense budget is still five times higher than China's. More...
... liberalization after the recent protests. Those who don't believe it — including Bukovsky and Illarionov — think that this is just a tactical and very temporary maneuver, which will be followed by election fraud, crackdown and a longer-term policy of autocratic rule.
But signs point to a Putin 1.5. For a while, the Kremlin will be tightening some screws while loosening others. But that can't go on forever. How long it will go on and what will come afterward remain to be seen.
Victor Davidoff is a...
Monaco-based potash tycoon Dmitry Rybolovlyev has bought the priciest piece of residential real estate in New York City, paying $88 million for a Manhattan penthouse.
"I'm probably not going to move back for a couple of decades," said Yekaterina Paramonova, a third-year undergraduate majoring in nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, echoing the sentiment of many Russians who have tasted life outside the motherland.
Organizers of a Feb. 26 opposition rally called "Farewell to Putin's Political Winter" said their application to hold the event on Ploshchad Revolyutsii next to the Kremlin was rejected by City Hall.
"Let's look at the history of human development," he begins. "Somebody always has to be first. That person says, 'We need to develop in this way,' and nobody believes him; they're suspicious of him. Nobody believed Steve Jobs or Bill Gates at first."
Central Elections Commission head Vladimir Churov said Thursday that he expects there to be more public complaints about falsifications after the March 4 presidential vote than after the State Duma elections, due to a "command" by opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta to file them.
World fighting campion Rasul Mirzayev's saga continued Thursday when charges of manslaughter in the death 19-year-old Ivan Agafonov were returned to the more serious crime of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
Norway's Telenor wrestled back partial control of telecoms firm VimpelCom from Mikhail Fridman's Alfa Group in a move that gives it more say over strategy and could prolong a long-running corporate battle.
The parching heat wave of 2010 did a tremendous favor to Germany's Metro Cash & Carry, just as Jeroen de Groot was coming on board to lead the company's Russian operation.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin unveiled his plan on social policy Monday, focusing on how Russia will boost its dwindling population amid a demographic crisis that threatens to turn the country into "void space."
A prominent French writer and journalist has been kicked out of the country on the grounds that she did not have the right to research a book while on a business visa.
Today's Moscow is unlovable and unlivable, overdeveloped, underserved by public utilities and choked by traffic. You can't drive, you can't breathe, there is no place to park and walking is impossible thanks to giant SUVs lining the sidewalks.
Russia's armed forces would be within their full rights to use nuclear weapons if any threats to the integrity of the country arise, Russian General Staff head Nikolay Makarov said Wednesday.
While the Russian authorities are, for the time being, using kid gloves to deal with the opposition at home, they have not shown the same constraint in South Ossetia.
Architectural preservation group Arkhnadzor said Monday that demolition at the constructivist-era Dynamo football stadium as a part of ongoing building work was against the law.
Vladimir Putin's campaign manager Stanislav Govorukhin quoted Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin in calling the liberal intelligentsia "the filth of the nation" in an interview published Monday.
In a city that was once the cradle of Russian democracy, an unprecedented new campaign kicked off over the weekend to install web cameras in every polling station around the country in an effort to prevent voting fraud.
Pussy Riot, a feminist punk collective from Moscow, creates protest through its dissident songs and unsanctioned performances, including a brief unauthorized concert in late January on Red Square.
If Putin gave up power at any age, he and dozens of his friends and colleagues who have become millionaires and billionaires over the past 10 years through their Kremlin-connected businesses could face serious corruption charges. This is why the best, and perhaps only, way for Putin to preserve immunity is to stay in power until death.
In Tuesday's second presidential debate of the campaign season, firebrand Vladimir Zhirinovsky harangued Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's levelheaded proxy over her patron's refusal to debate and alleged desire to rule for life.
A schmaltzy music video hailing Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as Russia's savior became a hit on the Russian Internet on Tuesday, with many bloggers and YouTube users poking fun at the song's hyperbolic lyrics.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin unveiled his plan on social policy Monday, focusing on how Russia will boost its dwindling population amid a demographic crisis that threatens to turn the country into "void space."
Putin has always been the ultimate "Teflon president" — but certainly not in the Ronald Reagan sense of the word. Putin's brand of Teflon is clearly made in Russia. Because he wants to avoid uncomfortable questions about his decade-long rule, Putin is once again refusing to participate in presidential debates.
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