A member of the family of Azerbaijan’s autocratic ruler sits on the board of a University of Oxford research center that studies the country, raising conflict of interest concerns for… Read more »
Democracies have been bent out of shape by rising populism but autocrats are more likely to crack under pressure, as the brittle façade of Vladimir Putin’s Russia demonstrates, analyst Philip… Read more »
What is the danger to an autocratic regime if it loses control over civil society? In the latest confirmation of the Russian authorities’ disregard for a vibrant and independent civil… Read more »
🇧🇾 #Belarus witnesses an unprecedented #HumanRights crisis over the past year, with massive human rights violations. UN expert Anaïs Marin calls on authorities to end policy of repression and to… Read more »
Alexei Navalny grows more powerful every time Putin talks about him, one observer suggests. Police took several allies of the jailed Kremlin critic into custody early on Thursday, ahead of planned… Read more »
Experts say the weekend protests in Russia, mainly in support of arrested opposition leader Alexei Navalny but also attracting members of the public angry at corruption and injustices in Russia,… Read more »
Many analysts wrongly assume that Russia is a declining power, but such analysis is outdated, argues Stanford’s Michael McFaul. It has reemerged, despite negative demographic trends and the rollback of… Read more »
Russian President Vladimir Putin denied the government’s involvement in the poisoning of opposition leader Alexey Navalny, saying Russian authorities would have “finished the job” had they been involved. Earlier this… Read more »
As an increasingly paranoid Kremlin retreats into what one analyst has called Putin’s ‘bunkerisation,’ another highlights the resilience of Russian civil society. A team of Russian state security agents poisoned… Read more »
Russian rights activists on Thursday condemned draft legislation including a significant expansion of who can be labelled a “foreign agent” as a new clampdown on dissent, Agence France Presse reports…. Read more »