Looking at the hordes of shoppers besieging Moscow stores this holiday season, a person might wonder why there has been so much talk of a crisis.…

Summing up the year, analysts generally agree that the political crisis that erupted a year ago after the December State Duma elections has largely run its…

I was awakened during a trip to Berlin on Wednesday by a call from my wife. "Our apartment is being searched," she said. Only 15 minutes later,…

Opposition activist Leonid Razvozzhayev's luck failed him twice. The first came when he was kidnapped in Kiev by Federal Security Service agents, brought back to Moscow…

Russia is a country without a foreign policy. Not quite, of course: all the institutions concerned are in place and keep working.…

When President Dmitry Medvedev in 2009 announced plans to build an innovation center at Skolkovo, many hoped the idea would not last. Right from the start, the scientific community…

For a full week, the country watched in amazement as deputies in the St. Petersburg municipal legislature spoke out against sex and noise in their city. Their pronouncements…

The anti-government rallies in Moscow are becoming something of a tradition, as demonstrators take to the streets about once every month, with the exception of August. At first, the authorities…

When discussing a scandal in Russia, the first question people are tempted to ask is, "Who ordered it?" The case against the female punk group Pussy Riot is…

Rioting broke out in the French town of Amiens last week while I was vacationing in France. A few days after the youths clashed with the police, the authorities…