Vladimir Putin
Opinion

Upcoming presidential election in Russia and Putin 4.0 System

The Russian presidential election will take place in a month, but the winner is already clear. The only candidate capable of receiving wider support from voters, Alexey Navalny, has been banned from registering as a candidate due to his criminal record, stemming from a fraud conviction he views as illegitimate. Accordingly, the question now is not about what kind of elections these will be, but what they will mean for Vladimir Putin’s fourth term. In other words, what will the Putin 4.0 system look like? What challenges will it face? […]

President Putin on TV
Uncategorized

Lithuania suspends Russian channel TVCI for 6 months

The six-month ban on retransmission of the Russian television channel TVCI over content inciting to war and hatred is taking effect on Monday. […]

March in Moscow
Uncategorized

Putin’s Russia. The situation is gradually changing

The Russian parliamentary (Duma) elections on September 18 do not promise any major changes. Opinion polls and the general atmosphere show that the country will continue to be led by the United Russia party which is affiliated with Vladimir Putin, while establishment opposition parties will support stability. Regardless, these elections will be significant in understanding the future of the long term, but little understood system of Vladimir Putin’s that has been in place for sixteen years. There are indicators suggesting that the role of the real opposition, despite its fragmentation, is gradually changing. Considering the delicate socioeconomic situation of the country and the presidential elections which are two years away, this makes for certain indications for the future. Thus what role does the opposition perform in the contemporary Russia? […]

Vladimir Zhirinovsky
Uncategorized

Russian MP Zhirinovsky suggests referendums in Baltics on joining Russian Federation

Member of the Russian Duma Vladimir Zhirinovsky, notorious for his eccentric and chauvinistic statements, is calling for a referendum to be organized in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia where people would be offered to vote for the countries to be included in the Russian Federation. Zhirinovsky openly announced that the referendum is not an attempt to allow the residents to exercise their democratic rights to voice their wishes, but to give them the opportunity to “agree becoming part of Russia again”. […]

No Picture
Opinion

Opinion: The Russians are coming to occupy the Baltic states

I purposefully chose a title for my piece to evoke the notorious phrase from 1949 by the then US Secretary of Defense, James Forrestal: “The Russians are coming. The Russians are coming. They’re right around. I’ve seen Russian soldiers.” […]

No Picture
Society

Why Lithuania banned Russian TV channel

Lithuania made international headlines last week when its Radio and Television Commission decided to institute a blanket ban on all programmes of a Russian TV channel. The channel in question, RTR Planeta, is registered in Sweden, but its content is entirely Russian-produced. The Commission had previously suspended broadcasts of individual programmes, saying they violated Lithuanian laws, but RTR Planeta would not stop. […]

Andrey Piontkovsky
Uncategorized

Andrey Piontkovsky: Putin plans to play poker, not chess

Russian president Vladimir Putin intends to blackmail the West with a nuclear weapon. So says Russian policy expert Andrey Piontkovsky. He reasons that if the “little green men” and Russian troops turn up in Estonia, for example, Vladimir Putin would warn NATO not to intervene because that would be a Russian World affair and he’d threaten to use nuclear weapons if the Alliance took military action against him. […]