On May 6, one year after clashes between demonstrators and police in Bolotnaya Square, a new rally took place in Moscow that showed that the core of the protest movement in Russia has stabilized at 20,000 to 30,000 people. These numbers are considerably higher than those that rallies attracted before 2011, but they are not sufficient to influence the Kremlin. Political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya discusses the situation in which Russia’s nonsystemic opposition finds itself today.

On May 17, Galina Starovoitova—people’s deputy of the USSR and RSFSR, member of the Russian State Duma and co-founder of Democratic Russia movement—would have celebrated her 67th birthday. She was murdered at her house in St. Petersburg in 1998. IMR Advisor Boris Bruk recalls Starovoitova’s life and her political legacy.

The recent visit by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to Moscow signaled the Obama administration’s desire to improve its relations with the Kremlin. Donald N. Jensen, Resident Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, contends that democracy and human rights are unlikely to be high on Washington’s agenda.

In 2012, nearly half a million Russian citizens were prohibited from going abroad. In the first three months of 2013, the same ban was imposed on more than 140,000 people. Author and analyst Alexander Podrabinek believes that the Russian authorities have already begun building a new “iron curtain” at the country’s border.