The corruption of mafia-like elite circles are the soft spot of post-Cold War authoritarian states, argues AEI analyst Clay R. Fuller. “All authoritarian states are kleptocracies because by definition, authoritarians maintain an artificial monopoly on… Read more »
Autocrats have a talent for producing impressive election results. It isn’t difficult to win when your opponents are not on the ballot, Russian democracy activist Vladimir Kara-Murza writes for the… Read more »
“This is what the Putin regime represents: an entire society psychologically damaged and unwilling to come to terms with its own past, leading to a widespread depression and belief that… Read more »
Western observers were quick to treat Valery Gerasimov’s articulation of the science of war as the blueprint for a future Russian hybrid attack against the west. From the proliferation of… Read more »
On Sept. 12, Vladimir Putin quietly passed a landmark date: He had spent 6,602 days as the top leader of Russia, The Washington Post notes: Although not widely acknowledged, this figure… Read more »
Moscow has perpetrated cyberwarfare, hacking, fake news and political interference for years, notes Leon Aron, director of Russian studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Judging by all this—and especially by… Read more »
As the US and the EU imposed sanctions on Russia over the MH17 downing that was by then accepted as mass murder, Moscow responded by claiming that documents purporting to… Read more »
Russian police arbitrarily detained hundreds of people during peaceful protests on June 12, 2017, in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Human Rights Watch said today: Riot police in both cities used… Read more »
The latest wave of protests in Russia is too diverse and divergent to be unified by a single political leader, platform, or slogan—though there is one motto that people… Read more »
The people who came out to protest corruption in Russia this week “still represent only a tiny fraction of the population; in the absence of independent media and with civil… Read more »