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Introduced by Vladimir Frolov, Russia Profile
August 27, 2010
Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev continues his high-profile political campaign to fundamentally reform the Russian police force. In early August the president unveiled his much-anticipated bill to reform the Interior Ministry and proposed to replace its Soviet-era name "militsia" with the tsarist-era "police." Will the new legislation bring about a transformation in the Russian police force, more substantial than a name change?
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Introduced by Vladimir Frolov, Russia Profile
August 20, 2010
The unprecedented forest and peat bog fires this summer have caused massive disruption, resulted in more than fifty deaths, and shaved perhaps a whole percentage point off Russia's annual GDP growth this year. But could they also cause a change in attitudes to climate change, both among the Russian public and within the Russian political class? What implications might a proactive Russia have on the global climate debate, domestic politics, environmental movements and its image abroad?
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Introduced by Vladimir Frolov, Russia Profile
August 13, 2010
With hundreds of forest and peat bog fires in central Russia raging out of control, a third of the nation’s agricultural output destroyed by a severe drought, and Moscow choking in thick smog, the country is in the midst of a national disaster. The overall number of forest and peat bog fires in Russia in the summer of 2010 has reached over 26,500. The fires have killed more than 50 people so far, and thousands have lost their homes. This disaster follows the hottest summer in Russia in 130 years. Temperatures have hovered around 35 degrees Celsius for weeks. Will Medvedev and Putin pay a serious political price for mishandling the wildfire disaster? Will the Russian people demand more accountability from their rulers?
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Introduced by Vladimir Frolov, Russia Profile
August 6, 2010
Ella Pamfilova, who headed the Presidential Council on Human Rights and the Development of Civil Society, quit her job unexpectedly last Friday without giving a reason for her decision. This comes as a blow to President Medvedev who has made developing civil society and protecting citizens’ rights a major theme of his presidency. Are human rights a divisive issue among Russia’s leaders? And was Pamfilova a casualty of infighting among the political elite?
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Introduced by Vladimir Frolov, Russia Profile
July 30, 2010
Earlier this month Russia’s Gazprom-owned NTV aired a two-part documentary called “The Godfather” in which it compared Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko to Hitler and Stalin, and accused him of authoritarianism and ordering the murders of his political opponents – an unprecedented move by Russian state-controlled media. With Belarusian presidential elections looming this winter, what is the Kremlin’s real strategy on Belarus? Will Moscow pressure Lukashenko into not standing, or offer him a peaceful “transition” afterward? Could Russia join the EU and the United States in not recognizing the result if the elections are rigged? Or would that be too outlandish an option for President Dmitry Medvedev to consider?
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Introduced by Vladimir Frolov, Russia Profile
July 23, 2010
The bi-annual gathering of all of Russia’s ambassadors abroad at the Foreign Ministry is usually a dull ritual with pompous speeches and that are quickly and justifiably forgotten. But this year President Dmitry Medvedev showed up to make what the Kommersant daily dubbed a “revolutionary” speech, naming the EU and America as Moscow's key partners and telling the assembled diplomats that their main task is the modernization and democratization of Russia. Could foreign policy really be a driver for change in Russia? Can Medvedev reform the Russian Foreign Ministry and the nation’s diplomatic service to better serve the objectives of his presidency?
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Introduced by Vladimir Frolov, Russia Profile
July 16, 2010
Russia is about to adopt a universal doctrine to disclaim once and for all any moral, legal or financial responsibility for the policies and actions of the Soviet authorities on the territory of the former Soviet republics and the states of Eastern Europe. Duma Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Konstantin Kosachev, a leading United Russia voice on foreign affairs, has published a summary of this doctrinal document in his blog on the Echo of Moscow radio station’s Web site. Will adopting such a universal historical doctrine help solve Russia’s problems with claims raised throughout the former Soviet block? Is it good for Russia’s image? How would the West view such a policy?
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Introduced by Vladimir Frolov, Russia Profile
July 9, 2010
The most dramatic spy scandal in decades culminated in a Cold-War style exchange of prisoners in Vienna on Friday. The swap of the ten Russian agents arrested in the United States for four Western spies held in Russian prisons has been worked out with the speed and clarity that could only have been achieved with directions from the very top. After U.S. prosecutors dropped money laundering charges, once the ten defendants had pleaded guilty to acting as agents of a foreign state, President Dmitry Medvedev personally pardoned the four Russians accused of spying for the West. So could the spy scandal really derail the “reset,” or have both sides invested too much in the success of the current agenda to let it go bust over a spy story?
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Introduced by Vladimir Frolov, Russia Profile
July 2, 2010
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has made no secret of his urge to build a model city in the Moscow suburb of Skolkovo. The idea is to create a microcosm of Russia as he sees it – innovative, competitive, and crucially with a government and police that residents trust. Is Medvedev’s Skolkovo another St. Petersburg in the sense that it is a model city reflecting the ruler’s vision of his nation’s future? Could such an approach succeed? Could Medvedev, like Peter I, move the seat of government to his new city?
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Introduced by Vladimir Frolov, Russia Profile
June 25, 2010
President Dmitry Medvedev, delivering a keynote address at the annual economic forum in his home town of St. Petersburg last week, told the world’s business leaders that Russia has already changed for the better and that it is serious about economic reform to secure a boom in foreign investment to modernize its economy. He also reshuffled the state’s informal hierarchy of adjectives, for the first time putting “flexibility, adaptability” ahead of the “stability” favored by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Does this signal a political reform to go alongside the economic change? Is this really change one can believe in?
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