Worldcrunch
👋 Kuzu-zangpo la!* Welcome to Wednesday, with aid groups urging the international community to take stronger measures to stop Israel’s offensive on Gaza City, the wife of late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny says tests prove her husband was poisoned, and our quiz question comes from an island in Scotland. Meanwhile, Matthias Nass makes the […]
Boris Yeltsin had a technique for not stopping certain top Russian officials from eliminating their opponents. Vladimir Putin refined the practice. So ingrained in the country’s politics, it’s a formula for murder borrowed from mafia dons.
While three “challengers” are on the ballot in Russia’s presidential election which ends Sunday, none of the bonafide members of the opposition were approved for the vote. The only organized protest movement was launched from prison by Alexei Navalny, several weeks before he died, with crowds of opponents lining up to demonstrate against President Vladimir Putin
As the world mourns the Putin critic and the WikiLeaks founder faces extradition to the U.S., Spanish journalist Juan Carlos Laviana argues that while the men may not be “ordinary” journalists, they both used investigative means and technological capacity to shine a light on those in power. And they were right.
With his funeral under way today, many are discovering the Putin critic’s Orthodox faith — which he did not speak much about. His very personal take on Christianity, although separated from his moral vision, paints him as the polar opposite of the president, who only believes in fear and terror.
Why join in on a presidential debate when you can start a war or eliminate political opponents. That’s how to get your “policy” prescription across. But in a sham of a democracy, you need elections and you need debates — with the comfort of knowing the other candidates will make your talking points for you.
Donald Trump is not creating the U.S. malaise any more than Putin is creating the Russian malaise or Netanyahu the Israeli identity crisis. But all three illustrate the inescapable risk if a “me-first” attitude is taken to an extreme degree by individuals who’ve accumulated power.
Russian authorities have said they will need two weeks before releasing the body of Putin critic Alexei Navalny, who died in prison on Friday. His widow says this is enough time for traces of lethal nerve agents to dissipate. In an interview with Agenstvo, one of the Soviet creators of the Novichok poison weighs in.
“If heroes were to ask themselves each time about the risks they face, then they would never accomplish their feats…”
Longtime Putin critic Alexei Navalny has died in prison at the age of 47, sparking outrage inside and outside of Russia. While widely esteemed for his courage challenging the Kremlin, the Russian politician’s views on Ukraine were more ambiguous. Here’s a commentary by a Ukrainian writer after a documentary last year about his struggle won an Academy Award.
Look back over the past two decades, and you’ll see Vladimir Putin has always been the man revealed by the Ukraine invasion, an evil and sinister dictator. The Russian leader just manages to mask it well.
From the depths of his prison cell, President Putin’s best-known opponent, Alexei Navalny, appears to have a plan for how to turn Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed uprising into new momentum for his cause for democracy and regime change in Moscow.
Two years ago, Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critic Alexei Navalny was jailed. Much has and hasn’t changed since then, but Putin’s invasion of Ukraine means that Russia has put itself on a course of no return.
A perfect storm must come together of deepening troubles on the battlefield in Ukraine, Kremlin insiders turning on Putin, popular opposition and (not least of all) ideas for what comes after. More and more signs of all these factors are starting to show up.
Russian media outlets have received government orders to remove archived material about Alexei Navalny and his investigations into corruption by Vladimir Putin and his associates. While the jailed activist’s past work can be found elsewhere, YouTube and other foreign internet platforms may be the Kremlin’s next target.
Russia may not be heading toward a full-blown revolution, at least not yet. But the current wave of protests shouldn’t be dismissed either.
MOSCOW — Alexey Navalny is one of most prominent opponents of the Russian government of Vladimir Putin. The 39-year old lawyer and head of the Moscow-based NGO Anti-Corruption Foundation first came to prominence through a blog that takes direct aim at alleged malfeasance by Putin and his associates. We spoke with him in his Moscow […]
The anti-corruption activist, under house arrest in Moscow, says that Putin is pursuing war in Ukraine to consolidate his power and fulfill his ambition to be Russia’s “president for life.”
An accusation, later withdrawn, by French cosmetics giant Yves Rocher stands at the center of the case of against celebrated anti-Kremlin blogger Alexei Navalny. Who’s pulling the strings?
KOMMERSANT (Russia), BBC, AFP Worldcrunch MOSCOW — Kremlin-backed candidate Sergei Sobyanin has won the mayoral election in Moscow, reports the Russian paper Kommersant. With the support of 51.37% of voters, he secured just above the 50% threshold needed to avoid a second-round ballot. His main rival, Alexei Navalny, received 27.2% of the vote. According to […]