by Sarah Hurst Vladimir Putin has been pulling out all the stops today to secure an overwhelming election victory. Fraud has been even more blatant than anticipated, with members of local electoral commissions from Dagestan to Yakutia caught on polling station videos stuffing ballots into ballot boxes. At […]
by Sarah Hurst Vladimir Putin held a “For a strong Russia” rally at Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium today, a venue which will also host the World Cup final in July. There were multiple reports of state employees being bribed and cajoled to attend, including a tweet by reporter Marc […]
by Sarah Hurst Alexei Navalny was just one of thousands of people who took part in the now-annual march in memory of Boris Nemtsov in Moscow today, ahead of the third anniversary of his murder on February 27. Smaller gatherings were also held in many cities around Russia. […]
by Sarah Hurst Alexei Navalny has called on people to publish a famous picture of Soviet soldiers in the victory parade in Red Square in 1945 holding captured German swastika flags and emblems. The picture appears on the cover of a history textbook that is commonly used in […]
by Sarah Hurst “A strong president – a strong Russia” is Vladimir Putin’s election slogan, now gracing his new campaign website and billboards all over the country. Remarkably, with very little effort Putin has reportedly already collected 500,000 signatures in his own support, and will continue to collect […]
by Sarah Hurst Russia’s Reserve Fund dried up completely at the end of last year and the National Wealth Fund has three-and-a-half months left of funds for pensions in it, Alexei Navalny says on his latest video, published today. Russia’s Ministry for Economic Development, possibly in response to […]
by Sarah Hurst Vladimir Putin once again refused to say Alexei Navalny’s name at his annual press conference, instead comparing him to Mikheil Saakashvili in response to a question from presidential candidate and Dozhd TV reporter Ksenia Sobchak. Former Georgian president and Odessa Oblast governor Saakashvili has been […]
by Sarah Hurst Ksenia Sobchak, the liberal TV presenter running for president who has been criticised for playing into the hands of the Kremlin, is being threatened with prosecution over her comments on Crimea. Sobchak posted a letter on Instagram from the Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office to Ruslan Ostashko, […]
by Sarah Hurst Open Russia has published a preview of a new Russian TV series called “Sleepers” that will start soon on Channel One. The none-too-subtle purpose of the supposedly fictional drama is to show that the West is manipulating an anti-corruption campaigner exactly like Alexei Navalny, called […]
Navalny vs. Putin 