Vladimir Putin, once viewed as an adept politician, is stunningly out of touch. His close confidants are fleeing in droves, revealing the systemic corruption in his government. His poll numbers are dropping, raising the possibility that he may not win on the first vote in the upcoming (and rigged) presidential elections. And on Saturday, a record number of Russians defied freezing temperatures and threats of persecution to call for his removal. (more)
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Thursday that government officials must crack down on migrant workers who break the nation’s laws by failing to register or get work permits, and on companies that profit by hiring them. (more)
MOSCOW (AP) — Tens of thousands of Russians jammed a Moscow avenue Saturday to demand free elections and an end to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s 12-year rule, in the largest show of public outrage since the protests 20 years ago that brought down the Soviet Union. Gone was the political apathy of recent years as many shouted “We are the Power!” (more)
MOSCOW — The billionaire owner of the New Jersey Nets became one of the first public figures to try to take advantage of Russia’s suddenly transformed political landscape, declaring Monday that he would run for president against Vladimir Putin in March. (more)
President Dmitry Medvedev ordered an investigation Sunday into allegations of fraud in Russia’s parliamentary election, one day after tens of thousands of protesters demanded it be annulled and rerun. (more)
Russian President Demitri Medvedev has announced that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will run for president next year. There’s much speculation about what this means for Russia, and whether it means current president Medvedev was just a proxy for Putin all along. (more)
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has stunningly announced that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin should return to the Kremlin in 2012 elections for a new six-year mandate. (more)
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the United States Monday of living beyond its means “like a parasite” on the global economy and said dollar dominance was a threat to the financial markets. (more)
An online campaign has been launched in Russia urging young women to support Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in a presidential vote by taking off their clothes, a lawmaker’s site showed on Sunday. (more)
(Reuters) – Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin cultivates the image of a bare-chested macho man, but a nun-like sect in central Russia thinks actually he’s the reincarnation of St. Paul, the apostle. (more)
As the political differences between Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev widen into a visible public rift, and each continues to insist on the wish to run for president in polls next year, some Russians are mulling a prospect that sounded like a fantasy just a few weeks ago: What if they faced off against each other in an open and fair election? (more)
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin posted this statement on his official website on March 21: (more)
Last month, the good folks at NASA announced that their high-powered Keppler telescope had revealed over 1,200 possible new planets. So, it seems more and more likely that we are not alone in this big, bad universe. Now we’d all like to think that the aliens who come here first will be cute and cuddly like E.T., or like those music-loving little fellas in “close encounters of the third kind.” But you know they won’t be — things are never that easy. They’ll probably be more like those little bastards that Sigourney Weaver had to stomp on in “aliens.” They’ll be mean, tough, and likely pretty pissed off from the long drive to get here. (more)
Russia under prime minister Vladimir Putin is a sham democracy, Mikhail Gorbachev has said in his harshest criticism yet of the ruling regime. (more)
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan (AP) — Vladimir Putin’s name has been put on maps in the ex-Soviet nation of Kyrgyzstan, where lawmakers have named a mountain peak after him. (more)
I think it is finally time to take that trip to Egypt I have been putting off. Chaos. Discontent. Violence in the streets. Witnesses say as many as 10,000 prisoners have escaped amidst the unrest. In Egypt, they call it Cairo. In America, we call it New Jersey. (more)
Two famous personalities collided last November at the world’s first tiger summit in St. Petersburg. (more)
MOSCOW (AP) — To Russian prosecutors, imprisoned oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky is guilty of more crimes: They say he stole nearly $30 billion in oil from his own company and laundered the proceeds. To others, he is a dissident who stood up to the powerful Vladimir Putin. (more)
Nude photos in Playboy are apparently no bar to a political career in Russia. At a ceremony in Moscow today, Russian spy Anna Chapman was appointed a leader of the youth branch of Vladimir Putin’s political party, even though she will appear naked in the men’s magazine next month. (more)
