On June 3, 2014, in London, Pushkin House and the Institute of Modern Russia will present the English-language version of They Chose Freedom, a documentary film on the history of the Soviet dissident movement. Following the screening, there will be a discussion with Vladimir Bukovsky, one of the leading Soviet-era dissidents.
Today’s Russia is witnessing a lamentable but inevitable convergence of domestic and external aggression. The country’s expansion into Ukraine is accompanied by the adoption of new, repressive laws and increasing police crackdown on the political opposition and civic activists within Russia. According to author and analyst Alexander Podrabinek, given this familiar trajectory, Russian society should expect a further “tightening of the screws,” while the international community should prepare for new military conflicts with Moscow.
Speculation over the extent to which Russian president Vladimir Putin is disconnected from reality continues. In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, U.S. secretary of state John Kerry declared that Putin “is creating his own reality, and his own sort of world, divorced from a lot of what’s real on the ground for all those people, including people in his own country.” The Russian leader’s unpredictability frightens the global community. This is why, according to political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya, it is important to understand what Vladimir Putin’s “own sort of world” looks like.
On May 8, the Ukrainian-American human rights organization Razom presented its white paper titled “Crisis in Ukraine: Its Legal Dimensions” at the United Nations. The event was attended by UN delegates and representatives of both the nonprofit and private sectors.
On April 28, the United States imposed a new round of “smart” sanctions against Russian government officials and companies considered close to Vladimir Putin, including travel bans and asset freezes for seven Russian officials and asset freezes on seventeen Russian companies. According to Donald N. Jensen, resident fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations, though, these sanctions are still unlikely to work without being included in a broader Western pushback campaign.
In March, a pro-Kremlin TV commentator threatened to turn the U.S. into radioactive dust. It is clear, however, that there will be no escalation. The question remains unanswered: whom is the Kremlin trying to frighten? According to sociologist Poel Karp, the takeover of Crimea and the coming war in Ukraine are nothing but attempts by the ruling Russian elites at retaining power.
Patriotism has been officially named as one of the uniting foundations of the Russian state. However, it seems that Russian authorities are trying to monopolize the notion of patriotism in order to advance their own agenda. What remains excluded from the official discourse is how the Russian public understands patriotism. IMR Advisor Boris Bruk delves into this complicated issue and concludes that, in the current political environment, the concept of Russian patriotism has developed negative features of nationalism, xenophobia, and intolerance toward others.
On April 30, a seminar titled “Corruption in Russia: Executive, Judiciary and Legislative” was held in Washington, D.C. Participants in the seminar discussed the history of corruption in Russia and post-Soviet countries, Russian anti-corruption law, and the concerns of corporate and legal advisors working with Russia. IMR advisor Ekaterina Mishina spoke at the seminar about the essence and causes of Russian corruption.
On April 23, the State Duma adopted in its second and third readings a law on liability for the public rehabilitation of Nazism. As writer Alexander Podrabinek observes, some parts of the new law repeat verbatim article 190-1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, according to which many Soviet dissidents were convicted for “spreading knowingly false fabrications” about the Soviet system.
On April 26, the Institute of Modern Russia hosted a panel entitled “The Meaning of Patriotism in Post-Soviet Russia” at the World Convention of the Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN) at Columbia University. IMR president Pavel Khodorkovsky chaired the panel of esteemed scholars, with Professor Richard Sakwa of the University of Kent participating as a discussant.
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