A “new GULAG” is emerging in Russia “right before our eyes,” opposition politician Gennady Gudkov says. For the moment it is “still small” but if will grow and metastasize if the Russian people do not speak out but assume that...
Russia under Vladimir Putin resembles an oriental despotism in that all property belongs to the ruler and all people are dependent on him, Igor Eidman says. As a result, it is no surprise that the country’s social pyramid corresponds to...
In the course of his current debate with economist Andrey Illarionov, social commentator Igor Klyamkin makes an important point that is all too often overlooked in Russia and elsewhere: authoritarian modernization is an increasingly...
A core element of Vladimir Putin’s worldview is that the Russians are “a divided people,” German historian Wilfried Jilge says, a perspective that underlies his continuing aggression against Ukraine and that lays the groundwork for...
Many in the West following the decision of more than 20 countries to expel Russian diplomats to show solidarity with the British think that Vladimir Putin has been driven into an untenable position and soon will be forced to back down in...
Many expected that with the passage of time, new generations of Russians would reject the worst aspects of their country’s past such as Stalinism, but new polls show that support for Stalin and forgiveness of his crimes is greater among...
Vladimir Putin “defends Ivan the Terrible and Stalin ‘from excessive demonization’ because unconsciously he feels himself” to share with them a common approach, Igor Eidman says, and views criticism of them like criticism of...
The current attacks on Alexei Navalny that suggest he will become a dictator if he manages somehow to defeat Vladimir Putin reflect the utopianism of the Russian intelligentsia and its failure to understand that anyone who succeeds the...
The Levada Center poll concerning whom Russians see as the most outstanding statesmen of all times and places has attracted most attention because it found that they list Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin as number one with Vladimir Putin and...
Not only are the countries Russians identify as friendly more likely to be authoritarian and poor than those they list as enemies, Andrey Illarionov says; but the former are falling ever further behind the latter both in terms of GDP per...
On 11 October, a three-day meeting of the Synod, or church council, of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, finished in Istanbul. It gave further confirmation that Ukraine is on the path to receiving church independence from Moscow – and healing...
