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Moral Deterioration of Putin’s “Power Vertical”: Outcomes of 2012

Details: 10 January 2013; Tatiana Stanovaya

2012 was an extremely contradictory year. On the one hand, Vladimir Putin has returned to the presidency and has considerably tightened his grip on the regime. On the other hand, for the first time during his rule, a protest movement has begun to rise in Russia, and the country is now divided into a passive majority and an active opposition minority. Tatiana Stanovaya, the head of the analytical department at the Center for Political Technologies and an IMR advisor, considers the outcomes of the past year.

Details: Politics

“Putin’s decision to grant Depardieu Russian citizenship is an insult to Russian civil society”. Statement by IMR President Pavel Khodorkovsky

Details: 10 January 2013

Although I do not know Gerard Depardieu personally, I have long admired his acting skills. However, as President of the Institute of Modern Russia, a nonprofit aimed to promote human rights and democratic principles, I am compelled to address his misguided comments about the state of democracy in Russia.

Details: Politics

Gerard Depardieu, Putin’s “Useful Idiot”

Details: 09 January 2013; Vladimir Kara-Murza

The decision by French actor Gerard Depardieu to take up Russian citizenship and his public praise of Vladimir Putin continue to be a hot topic for the international media. According to IMR Senior Policy Advisor Vladimir Kara-Murza, this story is reminiscent of the “useful bourgeois idiots” – the Western celebrities who supported the Communist regime in the USSR.

Details: Nation

Between Pass and Fail (A Historian’s Perspective)

Details: 04 January 2013; Alexander Yanov

In his recent state-of-the-nation address, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that only those countries which prevail in the battle for the intellect will survive the global competition. However, according to historian and IMR Advisor Alexander Yanov, the Russian leader’s own intellectual level does not leave the country under his rule a serious chance for success.

Details: Politics

Vladimir Bukovsky: “The Collapse of the System Could Happen Quite Soon”

Details: 03 January 2013; Olga Khvostunova

This spring, Russia will see a new wave of protests, which could lead to a change in government and to the collapse of the current political system. Such is the view of Russian writer Vladimir Bukovsky, a legendary Soviet-era dissident and a leader of the opposition “Solidarity” movement, who spoke with IMR’s Olga Khvostunova.

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