Russia

So, two years in prison for the members of Pussy Riot as a consequence of their foul and insulting behaviour inside a church. The western world is outraged and takes the severity of the sentence as evidence that Russia is a totalitarian state where everyone does as Putin wants. Thank God we’re not like that over here, huh? We live in a democracy where one is free to lampoon all religious belief without punitive action descending upon us by the state. Which will be news to Andrew Ryan, among others – he was sentenced to 70 days in jail for setting fire to a copy of the Koran. And the two men who received one

One of the happiest things about writing for the Spectator is that there is no editorial line. Indeed the editor is always pleased by an intra-mural rammy. So there’s this: Dennis Sewell’s argument that Pussy Riot, the only all-girl Russian punk band you’re likely to have heard of, have been asking for trouble and deserve some of the trouble they’re receiving is the lamest sort of counter-intuitive, concern-trolling journalism. It helps pay the bills, mind you, so there’s that too. Having typed the obligatory “Of course Putin is ghastly” paragraph (or, as Sewell puts it, the Russian president is “a nasty, unscrupulous weasel” which, perhaps unwittingly, makes Putin seem a

If you enjoy scoring tiny but likely returns on your wagers, then how about putting some money down on Vladimir Putin to win today’s presidential election in Russia? William Hill are currently offering odds of 1/100, if you’re interested. Like John Simpson, writing for this week’s Spectator, they regard this as ‘Russia’s Coronation Day’. A near cert. The rest of Simpson’s article is worth reading, but it’s his conclusion that we’ll pull out here. Putin, he says, will ‘walk it in the first round’ today, but his medium-term future looks far less secure: ‘Russia is changing. It can’t simply be told to shut up any more. Soon — not within

Just a couple of days after Vladimir Putin’s electoral setback, Russian police have arrested a number of protesters, including veteran liberal politician Boris Nemtsov and the popular blogger Alexei Navalny. This is the umpteenth time that Nemtsov, the former deputy prime minister of Russia, has been manhandled by the Russian state. He also spent some time in jail at the beginning of 2011 and was subjected to strenuous treatment. But, it is unusual for Navalny to have been pulled in. He is an activist who’s gained prominence among Russian bloggers and reformers. He is not “Russia’s Erin Brockovich”, as hailed by Time Magazine, and many of his recent remarks contain

Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Russia marked the beginning of the end of the Putin era. It won’t feel like it for another few years, as the Russian strongman ascends to the nation’s Presidency again and bestrides the international stage. But when future historians come to examine post-Putin Russia, the end of 2011 will be seen as the point at which the transition began. Exit polls showed Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party with less than 50 per cent of the vote. United Russia held a two-thirds majority in the outgoing State Duma. The significant drop in support for United Russia — despite electoral fraud and with only tame parties