Recently in Russia Category

Mikhail Beketov had been warned, but would not stop writing. About dubious land deals. Crooked loans. Under-the-table hush money. All evidence, he argued in his newspaper, of rampant corruption in this Moscow suburb. Not long after, he was savagely beaten outside his home and left to bleed in the snow. His fingers were bashed, and three later had to be amputated, as if his assailants had sought to make sure that he would never write another word. He lost a leg. Now 52, he is in a wheelchair, his brain so damaged that he cannot utter a simple sentence. Read on at the NYT here Interview with Alexander Lebedev from KGB operative to owner of The Independent. Here

An Avar (from Dagestan) is driving through the Caspian port city of Makhachkala with a Lakh in the passenger seat. Spotting a red light, he pumps the accelerator and speeds through it. "You just ran a red light!" the Lakh says. "Avars don't stop for red lights," the Avar explains, and speeds through another. In a few minutes, they come to a green light, and the Avar stops. "Why did you stop?" the Lakh asks. "You can't be too careful," his friend says, "an Avar might be coming the other way."

By Amy Knight How long will Vladimir Putin last? It is hard to imagine Russia without its steely-eyed, iron-fisted, and hugely popular prime minister, especially since he has hinted so broadly that he might run again for the Russian presidency when the term of his protégé, Dmitry Medvedev, expires in 2012. Starting in that year, the Russian presidential term will extend from four to six years (a change introduced by Medvedev) and Putin would legally be allowed to serve two more terms. This means he could conceivably be Russia's leader until May 2024, when he would be seventy-one years old.

The death last month of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in Moscow's Butyrka prison sparked a public debate over the notorious living conditions in Russian jails and holding cells. Roman Popkov, who led the Moscow branch of the banned National Bolshevik party, spent more than two years in pretrial detention in Butyrka was recently awarded 5,000 euros after the European Court of Human Rights ruled that his detention was illegal. Here Popkov speaks about life in one of the city's most infamous prisons.

BELLARUS journalist Iryna Khalip, a 2009 Courage in Journalism Award Winner from the International Women's Media Foundation has once again received threats to her life.

She was warned that she "will meet with Anna Politkovskaya," the murdered Novaya Gazeta reporter.

Threats to Khalip surfaced while she was working on a complicated investigation into the case of Emmanuel Zeltser, an American lawyer who spent 18 months in a Belarusian jail before being released after the intervention of the American Embassy in Belarus. Khalip's investigation documents a circle of relationships that includes Boris Berezovsky, the Russian billionaire who lives in exile in London; the heirs to the fortune of Georgian billionaire Badri Patarkatsishvili; the Belarusian KGB; Lord Peter Goldsmith, Berezovksy's attorney; and the U.S. embassy in Belarus. After submitting the article to her editors, but before publication, Khalip began receiving threats.