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An interesting piece by Catherine Belton in today’s Financial Times reveals that the family of Igor Shuvalov, Russia’s first deputy prime minister, bought nearly $18m of Gazprom shares through an offshore company as the government’s liberalisation o...
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With the benefit of post-election hindsight it’s possible to see that Russia is not the Middle East or Ukraine There will be no ‘Russian spring’ or Orange Revolution in the Kremlin.In terms of speculation about Russia’s future, however, you could ...
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Russia’s once and future president Vladimir Putin won his expected landslide victory in the 4th March election, though the victory was marred by allegations of fraud and by violent clashes between police and protesters at a post-election opposition ral...
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The key to Russia’s post-election settlement is its economy, stupid – just as the motives behind Putin’s grassroots support and the anti-government protests are only partly social and political.Economics also plays a role in his popularity or lack ...
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With only a week to go till polling day, the outcome of Russia’s presidential election is a foregone conclusion: Vladimir Putin will reclaim the presidency with a first-round victory in spite of a wave of unprecedented anti-government protests triggered...
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The lack of unity within Russia’s political opposition is causing concern in an unexpected quarter, according to former finance minister Alexei Kudrin, who claimed this week that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is worried about the disarray of his rivals....
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So New Year’s Eve came and went in Russia without major surprises. It wasn’t always thus. Twelve years ago, in declining health and languishing in the polls, President Boris Yeltsin resigned unexpectedly on the final day of 1999, transferring power to...
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The outcome of Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Russia, and a manifestly terminal decline in support for his United Russia party, must have come as an unwelcome surprise to the country’s former and future president.No doubt Vladimir Putin’s polls...
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The jury is still out on the likely short-term effect of Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organisation, now a formality after 18 years of fraught negotiations.In a recent op-ed piece in the Moscow Times, Anders Aslund described the accession, which...
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The opening of Gazprom’s controversial multi-billion dollar Nord Stream Baltic pipeline last month was just another gambit in its long-running poker game with the European Union.The first shipment of Russian gas via the 1,225-kilometre Baltic pipeline, ...
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The Stalinist makeover of Vladimir Putin continues. On 27th November, his moribund party United Russia nominated its leader as presidential candidate in next March’s election with a Soviet-style unanimity: 614 out of 614 votes.His acceptance speech to t...
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Russia’s battle with the European Union over gas pricing took an intriguing new turn this week with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin hitting out the myopia of EU energy market reforms, while the energy ministry muttered vague threats about re-directing gas...
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Russia’s ousted finance minister Alexei Kudrin lashed out on 18th October at what he called the government’s “risky” economic policy, which he said had been prompted by a complex mixture of internal political motives and favourable yet volatile pr...
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Ukraine’s jailed former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko took another hit over the weekend the authorities launched a new case, accusing her of running up a $300-million debt with Russia at the expense of the Ukrainian state.Last week in a Kiev court, im...
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In the shadow world of Kremlin politics it’s never easy to read the writing on the wall, but after months of uncertainty and guesswork at least we now have a glimpse of Russia’s future over the next 12 years.In fact you can double that, if Prime Minis...
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A week is a long time in Kremlinology, and after the seismic events of the past seven days it’s become clear that Russia is living under a new dispensation, i.e. the old dispensation, in which to quote T. S. Eliot, the magus-like figure of Alexei Kudrin...
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On 7th July, Ukraine’s former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko made her usual dramatic exit from Kiev’s Pechersky court, where she is on trial for alleged abuses of office in signing gas contracts with Russia.Immaculately turned out as ever, in a dress...
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The run-up to Russia’s parliamentary election in December is turning into a stand-off between fake and banned opposition parties – a throwback to the smoke-and-mirrors politics of the Soviet era.Last month the Kremlin denied registration to a new poli...
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It wasn’t quite independence day for Russia’s judiciary, but something interesting and unusual happened on 4th July: a federal prosecutors’ investigative committee ruled that mistreatment by doctors had been a ‘direct cause’ of the death in pris...
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Just when you thought it was safe to go back into Russia’s banking sector comes the news that the central bank has been forced to plug a $14-billion black hole in Bank of Moscow’s balance sheet.It’s the largest bail-out in Russian history but that...