Latest Articles about Domestic/Social

Medvedev Tries to Prove His Relevance In the Putin-Centric State

The first week of Vladimir Putin’s reinstated monopoly on power was marked by Dmitry Medvedev’s persistent attempts to prove that his presidency did not end on September 24, when he announced the “deeply thought-through decision” not to run for a second term. Medvedev demonstratively denigrated... MORE

Eight Killed In Dagestan Car Bombing

A number of insurgency-related incidents were reported in Dagestan and Ingushetia this past week. Dagestan’s Interior Ministry reported today (September 30) that an arms cache was discovered on the outskirts of the village of Toturbiikala in the republic’s Khasavyurt district yesterday (September 29), and that... MORE

Public Security Officially Joins the Blogosphere

On September 27, the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) announced the national launch of "police microblogging construction" (gong’an weibo jianshe) as the newest element in its social management toolkit and public security informationization (MPS.gov.cn, September 27; People’s Daily, September 27). To prepare the national launch... MORE

Life-Long Rule For a Self-Appointed Tsar

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin decided to terminate the pretense of being officially second in command in Russia and announced that he will replace President Dmitry Medvedev in the Kremlin. At a congress of the ruling United Russia party in Moscow, Medvedev also announced he will... MORE

Tsentr 2011: Russia’s “New” Brutal Army

The highlight of the combat training year for the Russian armed forces, conducting the operational-strategic exercise Tsentr 2011, illustrates the experimental nature of the numerous contradictory reform aspirations and the weakness of the country’s conventional military. Tsentr 2011, staged in seven training ranges in southern... MORE

Ingushetia’s Government May Face New Surge of Violence

On September 23, a delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) visited Ingushetia. The head of the PACE delegation, Nikolaos Dendias, called the refugees’ living conditions in the republic “unsatisfactory.” Dendias is a member of Pace’s committee on migration, refugees and... MORE