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Rallies in memory of Boris Nemtsov held in Russia
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Published: 26 February 2018
Last Sunday, on 25th February 2018, rallies in memory of the famous politician and opposition member Boris Nemtsov took place in the center of Moscow and other Russian cities. Nemtsov was assassinated on February 27, 2015, on the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge.
Before the start of the event, Moscow law enforcement officials tightened security measures and blocked off vehicle traffic along the route of the march. Dozens of police, Rosgvardia and OMON officers arrived at the square near the metro station "Pushkinskaya" an hour prior to the event.
According to the information provided by the coordinator of the independent organization White Counter Dmitri Ionov, as of 14:30, around 7.6 thousand people took part in the memorial action. The press service of Moscow's division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs stated that about 4500 people participated in the event.
Two of the presidential candidates – Grigory Yavlinsky and Ksenia Sobchak have participated in the march. A number of well-known opposition members like Mikhail Kasyanov, Ilya Yashin, Emilia Slabunova, Vladimir Ryzhkov and Sergei Mitrokhin also took part in the procession in Moscow.
Memorial rallies were also held in other major cities of Russia: Barnaul, Biysk, Volgograd, Yekaterinburg, Izhevsk, Kazan, Kaliningrad, Krasnoyarsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Perm, Rostov-on-Don, St. Petersburg, Saratov, Tomsk, Tyumen, Ulyanovsk, Cheboksary, Chelyabinsk ...
There were no serious incidents during the event, however, some people were reportedly arrested, mainly for demonstrating illegal paraphernalia.
Titov's list brings hope for justice
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Published: 12 February 2018
The creation of the so-called "Titov's list" became an unexpected and pleasant surprise. The representative for the Rights of Entrepreneurs, Boris Titov, has composed a list of businessmen forced to seek refuge abroad after being prosecuted by Russian law enforcement on questionable criminal cases, which are worth reconsidering. The list was presented to the President of Russia. It contains 16 people, including me - Konstantin Dyulgerov.
"These ex-businessmen all have similar stories: they managed to leave the country before they were imprisoned. Some have lived outside Russia for 20 years, with even the Interpol already excluded them from the wanted list. Yet in their Motherland the cases against them still exist", said the business representative. "Our main goal is to "look into the eyes", to determine the further steps to ensure their legal protection and their further return to Russia", stressed Boris Titov. Also, according to the business ombudsman, he is only going to defend those entrepreneurs, whose cases were actually unlawful and initiated with the single purpose to take away their business. Moreover, even if the entrepreneur has indeed violated something, it pointless to put him in jail. For the country's economy, it is much more profitable if he compensates for the caused damage in double or triple size, and then continue to do business, pay taxes and create jobs.
This information has been quickly spread by many media outlets, including those with an undoubted authority - TASS, Interfax, RIA Novosti and others. In a separate note, I would like to thank RBC, who managed to find my contacts and provide me with the opportunity to express my opinion.
When I turned to Boris Titov with a plea for help, I did not even hope for such outcome. It was highly unexpected for me to get into the "Titov's list". Boris Titov has personally met with some of the businessmen. It is known that these meetings took place in the UK, but I do not live there and never attended any of them.
Dynastic chekist state capitalism is ruling Russia
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Published: 23 January 2018
There is a "dynastic state capitalism" blossoming in today's Russia. Its idea is that the political elites which hold the power behave like noblemen and kings of the past, transferring their power and privileges by inheritance. This concept of the current situation was voiced during the panel discussion at the Gaidar forum.
"What we have developed this day is a resource authoritarianism: a certain group that sells a resource, also owns it and protects it. In this system, security is more important than freedom, so we are talking about chekist state capitalism. What we own - state assets, quasi-private assets - we also protect, using the power of the secret services. That's how this regime works", said Andrei Kolesnikov, representative of the Carnegie Moscow Center. "State and quasi-private assets, owned in fact by a few people in this country, who at the same time perform bureaucratic functions, transfer the country to their children, as another asset", said Kolesnikov.
The existing matrix of the "barin-lackey" format, as experts believe, has once again put its roots in the public consciousness, and it is extremely problematic to break out of this vicious circle. This current system of "dynastic state capitalism" is, with rare exceptions, fueled by the established political regime, the economic elites, the academic elites, and by the population itself. A good example for the dynastic succession is the majority of children of major politicians, officials, and administrators whose offsprings, without applying any kind of special effort, become successful officials, law enforcement chiefs, judges, heads of state-owned corporations and state banks, etc. In this sense, the political and economic power in Russia is inherited, and the members of the top classes already view themselves as an aristocratic layer of society - the highest silovik-protected caste that is allowed a lot more than permitted to the lowly crowd.
Russian TV illegally agitates for Putin
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Published: 23 January 2018
Russian movement for defence of voters’ rights “Golos" once again drew attention to one very noticeable thing. Russian television supports Vladimir Putin's massive illegal agitation campaign. Golos movement's website reports receiving more than 50 messages about the federal and local TV broadcasts over the past 3 weeks, which contained the obvious signs of illegal pre-election agitation. In every case, there was a clear preference for only one candidate - Vladimir Putin. Some materials also contained information directed against other candidates for the presidency. Golos movement demands urgent measures, as the pre-election campaigning in the media may only start 28 days prior to the scheduled voting day, specifically, on February 17. At the same time, there should be no special preferences to any of the candidates.
Speaking frankly, it should be noted that other candidates do appear on the television. However, the trick is that these candidates do not have any real chance for a real rivalry. There is Grudinin from the Communist Party, who creates an intrigue, however, he is mentioned on the TV dozens of times less than Vladimir Putin, who is mentioned constantly and solely from the positive side, as the "savior of Russia and its suffering population". As for such candidate as Navalny, they prefer not to talk about him at all.
It's hard to be an honest cop in Russia
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Published: 22 January 2018
On-duty traffic police officer Igor Sadotenkov ran into his law enforcement colleagues, who, however, seemed to consider themselves above the law. What happened next is a rather extraordinary phenomenon for Russia. The policeman showed principled attitude despite the high-ranking status of the suspect. However, the cost of this attitude was high.
The story begins back in August 2016. The traffic police in Smolensk stopped a car with too heavily tinted windows, which violates the rules. The driver of the vehicle could not provide any special permit allowing the level of the window tint and resisted the police officers. As a result, he was detained and taken to the police station. However, the driver was not some ordinary person, but the assistant of Smolensk district prosecutor, and the son of one of the judges of the regional court. This fact sealed the fate of simple officers. They were found guilty of abusing their official power and punished demonstratively by the suspended sentence. However, at the end of 2017, justice was restored. The Supreme Court has fully acquitted Igor Sadotenkov and his colleagues.
But recently Inspector Sadotenkov stopped another car in Smolensk, also clearly a "special" one. This time the car was driven by Sergey Khlebnikov, a senior investigator in the Smolensk department of the Investigative Committee of Russia. He also turned out to be the son of one of the judges. According to the media, the driver was drunk, and according to the inspector, the readings of the breathalyzer were 4 times higher than the norm. The driver was detained according to the protocol. But soon after being caught drunk, the investigator Khlebnikov said that after talking to the traffic police he had pain in his back, so he had to go to the hospital.
Now Igor Sadotenkov fears that he will be dragged into a new lawsuit, criminally prosecuted and fired from his job. And the search for truth will again take years. A number of media outlets already showed interest in the situation, as did the Investigative Committee. Perhaps this will help the principled policeman in his struggle for an honest name. I want to wish him luck.
The organized financing of Putin's campaign
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Published: 10 January 2018
According to the documents published by the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation, the size of the electoral campaign fund of the current president Vladimir Putin, who is running for another term of "galley slavery", has reached its maximum possible amount of 400 million rubles.
Despite all the statements about the pre-determined nature of the upcoming elections, during the first week of the new year, Vladimir Putin became the richest and the most secured candidate. The budgets of other candidates are not even close to Putin's: Vladimir Zhirinovsky's fund totals 200 million, Boris Titov and Ksenia Sobchak have funds of 20 million, and Grigory Yavlinsky has only 15 million rubles.
The most significant donations of 28 million rubles were made by the "United Russia" party, as well as by the regional development support Funds of Moscow, the Republic of Tatarstan and the Sverdlovsk region. The similar Funds of the other regions of Russia also made donations from 2 to 25 million rubles.
It might be tricky for a Russian to understand what are these "development funds". They do not display any public activity and there is very little information about their activities on the Internet, but they do seem to have money. It is known that the Regional Cooperation and Development Support Funds are former United Russia funds that were reorganized into independent companies in 2015-2016. They continue to attract sponsor money from the regions and independently conduct financing of certain projects (charitable, patriotic, etc.). They also sponsor specific political activities, for example, United Russia itself, and now Putin.
This fund system is quite "shady" since it is difficult to see the objects and the sources of finance. Despite the seeming fragmentation and separate nature of regional funds, their decisions are clearly coordinated from one center. But why does this whole structure work from behind the scenes? After all, it actually affects the life of the entire country! Maybe the reason for that is that the government itself takes care of the sources of these donations? For example, through grants, state contracts, contracts of state corporations, sponsorship fees and other ways? The entire design of these funds is to conceal the true character of their work, but their obvious connection to the ruling party is clear, and the likely reason for their existence is to help to preserve this very power.
The head of the presidential press service, Dmitry Peskov, refused to comment on the financing of Putin's election campaign, stressing that he is the representative of the president of Russia, not the candidate Vladimir Putin.
Indeed, there is hardly anything to comment on here, the Russians again faced the shadowy schemes, conspiracies and the special operation of taking the throne for Vladimir Putin once again.
Navalny was not allowed to run for president
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Published: 26 December 2017
December 25th, 2017, marks the important event in Russian political life, which is going to affect the country's future. The Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation made a decision on non-admission of the well-known opposition member Alexei Navalny to the elections.
The formal reason behind this decision was Navalny's suspended sentence, which clearly was prudently organized by the Russian authorities. Navalny proved at the European Court of Human Rights that the sentence was not legal, and the criminal case itself was fabricated. The ECHR decision was fulfilled in an interesting way. The Supreme Court canceled the verdict and sent the case for a new consideration. However, this clearly was not a triumph of law and justice, but a cunning move of the siloviki who then pronounced the same verdict on the same Kirovles case again. Navalny successfully appealed it the second time in November 2017. So we have the new case, the new verdict, and with the previous sentence canceled, the result is still same! An appeal of the new verdict may take years. This way the system played its role by keeping Navalny out of the elections, thus making fools of everyone.
But even having suspended sentence is not a legitimate reason for refusing to register a candidate. Article 4 of the Russian Constitution clearly states: "The categories of citizens who have no right to elect, be elected, to carry out electoral activities, and to participate in a referendum are citizens recognized as incapable by the court and those serving term of imprisonment according to the verdict of the court ". However, in 2013 the Constitutional Court issued a decree limiting the right of individuals convicted for committing serious crimes to participate in elections as candidates. Russian Constitution was expanded and supplemented the way the power usurpers wanted. The initial meaning of the said constitutional norm was completely distorted.
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