American-Russian alliance. Main page

News

Business

Keyur Patel

"The Financial Times"

High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Russia released a preliminary estimate for 2011 GDP growth on Tuesday - and at 4.3 per cent, it looks pretty healthy. The figure crept ahead of analyst expectations, buoyed by a strong recovery in consumer demand over the year, while 2010 growth was revised upwards, also to 4.3 per cent. Renaissance Capital was cautiously bullish, calling the forecast 'reason for a (modest) celebration'.

Russia threatens to ignore WTO commitments in trade with US if Cold War law isn't scrapped

Editorial

"The Washington Post"

Russia will not abide by its World Trade Organization commitments with the U.S. unless Washington scraps a trade law that dates back to the Cold War, the foreign minister said Wednesday.

Putin: Business must return from "offshore shadows"

Anastasia Lyrchikova

"Reuters"

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday decried the illicit use of offshore structures by Russian state businesses to spirit cash out of the country and ordered them to return from the "offshore shadows".

Book Review

A protagonist in the Pasternak case: Inge Schönthal: Between Legend and Reality (Interview with Sergio d'Angelo)

Boris Pasternak (1890 - 1960), a Russian poet, writer, and unquestionably a genius, was subjected in the last years of his life to harsh persecution by the Soviet regime. The ostensible reason for that was publication in the West of Doctor Zhivago , a superb novel that was banned in his native country but deferentially acclaimed throughout the world, bringing its author the highest reward, the Nobel Prize for Literature. Doctor Zhivago was first published in Milan, Italy, in November 1957. It was put out by a publishing house founded by Giangiacomo Feltrinelli just a couple of years previously.

Breaking News

Vladimir Putin's new campaign strategy: Vilify the United States

Joel Brinkley

Listening to Vladimir Putin trying to salvage his career as his base of support seems to be crumbling around him, the Russian prime minister sounds more and more like all of those Arab dictators just before their own people turned on them in angry revolt.

'Stability is something that can only be achieved through hard work, by being open to change and ready for long-overdue, well-planned and well-calculated reforms,' Putin declared in an online campaign essay this month.

So said Syrian President Bashar Assad almost exactly a year ago, just before his own country dissolved into protest, chaos and slaughter.

Moscow populism and the Great Game

Uran Bolush

Russia witnessed mass anti-government rallies on two occasions in December last year. Frustrated by the victory of the pro-Vladimir Putin party in what was believed to be rigged parliamentary elections, Moscow residents did not hesitate to express their discontent by going to the streets and demand the elections to be re-run. Considering the Russian leadership has ruthlessly extinguished opposition voices in the last decade, recent events highlight that changes might have reached Russia's centralized political system.

The questions one could pose are: will these events spur the advent of other political forces that might challenge the existing status quo and undermine Putin's presidential ambition? In particular, would the rise of alternative political figures lead to revised balanced foreign policy of Russia thereby slowing down its Eurasian project? And how might such powers as China and the United States react?

Putin Guards Russia's Mideast Influence in UN Snub of Assad Ouster Demand

Henry Meyer

Russia won't back the U.S. and its Arab allies in a United Nations resolution to oust Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad as it seeks to defend its most important lever in the Middle East, said researchers from Moscow to London.

Geopolitics

Vladimir Putin's new campaign strategy: Vilify the United States

Joel Brinkley

So said Syrian President Bashar Assad almost exactly a year ago, just before his own country dissolved into protest, chaos and slaughter.

Moscow populism and the Great Game

Uran Bolush

Putin Guards Russia's Mideast Influence in UN Snub of Assad Ouster Demand

Henry Meyer

Security

Vladimir Putin's new campaign strategy: Vilify the United States

Joel Brinkley

"Politico"

So said Syrian President Bashar Assad almost exactly a year ago, just before his own country dissolved into protest, chaos and slaughter.

Moscow populism and the Great Game

Uran Bolush

"Asia Times"

Putin Guards Russia's Mideast Influence in UN Snub of Assad Ouster Demand

Henry Meyer

"Bloomberg"

Young Voices

How Russia greeted new US Ambassador

Ira Bubnova, American University in Moscow

Michael McFaul who is considered to be one of the ideologists of the 'reset' policy with Russia have recently moved to Russia as the new American ambassador.

Taking into account complicated and contradictory relations between Russia and the United States (the situation with Russian elections, issues on missile defense, disagreement over sanctions against Iran), the appointment of Ambassador McFaul gives us the hope that he would contribute to the "reset".

Who is to blame in the collapse of USSR?

Elizabeth Lebedeva, Department of World Politics, Moscow State University

USSR was a world power which made its own ideology, culture and traditions. It had powerful government, patriotic armed forces, qualified machinery, and diversified education. The entire world was afraid of the might of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics especially the military potential of the country was frightening. Western countries mostly were afraid of spreading the soviet communist`s ideology which was differ from the classical ideology which had been described by Marx and Engels in their works all over the world. One of such countries which tried to resist it was USA which played a great but not the main role in the USSR collapse. So who is to blame in the dissolution of a state?

What do the Duma election results mean for Russia's future and the state of its democracy?

Irina Bubnova

According to the results of last Duma election on the 4^th of December, Putin's United Russia party got 238 seats out of 450. Compared to previous election, United Russia has suffered significant loss in number of votes.

This election can be called a turning point in history when the dominant political party has dramatically lost popularity, and opposition is ready to join efforts to provide a counterweight to the regime.

Face of the day

In defense of McFaul

Edward LOZANSKY

President, American University in Moscow

Ambassador McFaul's or Mike's, as friends and colleagues call him, first steps on arrival in Moscow were marked by a mammoth scandal in the media, internet, Duma and elsewhere. However, it is my strong suspicion that Mike felt victim to some intrigues in the higher places in Washington.

PERSONS

Medvedev Dmitry

Russian Federation President

Barack Obama

President of the United States

Putin Vladimir

President of Russian Federation

Hillary Clinton

Secretary of State

PERSONS AND CENTERS