The Russian PM holds his annual QA session with Russian voters, following street protests over his rule and alleged election fraud Link to this video Vladimir Putin dismissed the thousands of protesters who have massed against his rule as agents of the west in his first response to the growing discontent during a marathon phone-in [...]
Tag: opposition
December 16, 2011
December 16, 2011
Russia puts new draft resolution on Syria to UNSC
Russia, surprisingly to Western powers, has put forward a UNSC resolution on Syria, calling on the Syrian parties to end violence and start talks. Meanwhile, Syria’s vice-president is visiting Moscow to discuss peaceful solutions for the crisis. The Kremlin’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin, who holds the council presidency for the month in December, did not [...]
December 16, 2011
Defiant Putin Mocks And Praises Opposition, Touts Vague Reform
MOSCOW — Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on December 15 alternately praised and mocked opposition protestors and accused the West of meddling in his country’s affairs, as he tried to woo the public with a trademark macho style in his annual televised call-in program. In the choreographed marathon phone-in broadcast on national television, Putin [...]
December 13, 2011
Top blogger Navalny challenges his arrest in European court
Lawyers of anti-corruption activist and top blogger Alexei Navalny and opposition leader Ilya Yashin, detained during protests last week, lodged their complaint to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Both men have been sentenced to 15 days in jail for disobeying police orders during protests in Moscow last Monday against the allegedly fraudulent December [...]
December 13, 2011
Moscow Court Says Opposition Activist’s Arrest Legal
MOSCOW — A Moscow court has ruled that the arrest of an organizer of Russia’s mass protest on December 10 was legal, RFE/RL’s Russian Service reports. Sergei Udaltsov, a coordinator of the opposition Left Front movement, was arrested for “illegally leaving a hospital while serving a multi-day jail term for holding an unsanctioned mass gathering [...]
December 12, 2011
Pro-Kremlin response rally draws 25,000 in Moscow
More than 25,000 supporters of President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin gathered just outside the Kremlin on Monday in response to the biggest opposition demonstration in Moscow in years, police said. Members of the country’s pro-Kremlin youth movements chanted pro-government slogans and brandished banners including “We PUT IN our Votes!”, “We have voted! [...]
December 12, 2011
EU Plans To Raise Election Issue At Upcoming Russia Summit
EU officials plan to raise the issue of Russia’s recent parliamentary elections, which the opposition claims were rigged, in talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev this week. Maja Kocijancic, spokeswoman for EU foreign-policy chief Catherine Ashton, said she expected the issue would be raised at the EU-Russia summit due to take place on December 14-15 [...]
December 12, 2011
Kremlin Offers Minor Concessions To Protesters
MOSCOW — In the days since Russia witnessed the largest antigovernment demonstrations since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Kremlin has made what appear to be a series of conciliatory gestures. On December 10, as tens of thousands took to the streets to protest electoral fraud, state media surprised viewers by airing full, straightforward, [...]
December 12, 2011
Nets’ Mikhail Prokhorov to run for Russian presidency
MOSCOW — After a week of surprising challenges to his authority, Vladimir Putin faces a new one from one of Russia’s richest and most glamorous figures — the billionaire owner of the New Jersey Nets says he will run against Putin in March’s presidential election. Mikhail Prokhorov’s announcement Monday came just hours after another Russian [...]
December 12, 2011
Chief Prosecutor sees no reason for election re-run
Russia’s Prosecutor General has said he sees no reason to cancel the results of the December 4 parliamentary poll, but has promised to hold an investigation into all reported violations. “I think there are no grounds for setting a new election date or recounting the votes after the results of the voting,” Yuri Chaika told [...]
December 12, 2011
Main news of December 11
WORLD * South Ossetian opposition leader Alla Dzhioyeva asked her supporters to stop demonstrations on the main square of the republic’s capital, Tskhinvali, under a deal reached with the incumbent authorities * Residents of Moldova’s breakaway Transdnestr region voted to elect their leader for the next five years RUSSIA * President Dmitry Medvedev disagreed with [...]
December 12, 2011
Kremlin supporters prepare response rally to Saturday’s nationwide poll protests
The United Russia party expects up to 15,000 of its supporters to gather at the Moscow’s downtown Manezhnaya Square on Monday two days after dozens of thousands rallied at the biggest opposition protest at the Moscow’s Bolotnaya Square. The authorized rally, called Glory To Russia, will be made up of members of the country’s pro-Kremlin [...]
December 11, 2011
Medvedev disapproves of rally’s slogans, but orders election probe
President Dmitry Medvedev ordered an investigation into alleged vote rigging, but stressed the messages voiced at the opposition demonstration Saturday did not carry his support. “I disagree with both the slogans and statements made at the rally. Nevertheless, I have given instructions that all reports from voting stations be checked to ensure compliance with election [...]
December 11, 2011
Vote protest a ‘watershed’ Russian leaders cannot ignore: analysts
Opposition rallies against recent elections that culminated in a massive demonstration in Moscow this weekend are a major “watershed” in Russia’s post-Soviet social and political development that the country’s leadership must reckon with, analysts said. The rally in Moscow on Saturday, attended by tens of thousands of relatively young, well-dressed, educated “mainstream” people rather than [...]