Monthly Archives: March 2010
My Take on the Moscow Bombings: They Don't Matter
From my new piece in Foreign Policy: After Monday’s shock, Tuesday morning in Moscow dawned bright and tense. No one had yet claimed responsibility for the twin suicide blasts that killed 39 people and injured dozens more in the Moscow … Continue reading
Gross: Russian tabloid publishes photos of suicide bomber heads [graphic]
The Russian tabloid LifeNews, which has uncannily good access that we won’t ask questions about, has published photos of the severed heads of the two female suicide bombers. The Lubyanka bomber (the second set of pictures) looks extremely young, and … Continue reading
Scenes from the Moscow subway bombing
Last night, a couple hours after the affected red line was reopened in time for the evening rush hour, I went to look for what the metro looked like in the wake of the twin suicide bombing that morning. The … Continue reading
Subway blast in Moscow kills 38, wounds over 100
Moscow is in chaos this morning after two female suicide bombers set off explosions in the Moscow metro at rush hour. One blast went off at the Lubyanka station, which is right under the FSB headquarters. So far, 35 are … Continue reading
Following Zardari's lead, Russian politicians suddenly want to be organ donors
A brilliant post today on Sean’s Russia Blog on how Russian politicians, following the Pakstani premier’s lead, now all want to donate their organs. Sean writes: Well, I doubt any sensible constituent would want an United Russia organ anyway. Plus I’ve … Continue reading
Medvedev has power to grant own wishes, reduce number of time zones
President Dmitry Medvedev had a dream, and on November 12, in his address to the country’s political elite, he dropped it on them, non sequiter style: why not reduce the number of Russia’s time zones from 11 to something that … Continue reading
Putin opens Moscow Fashion Week with a mystery photo
It’s fashion week in Moscow, so I thought it fitting that we open it with this photograph of Dear Leader Vladimir Putin. Unlike prior photographs of DLVP, which show him mastering nature with his bare chest, this one is, um, … Continue reading
Hillary Clinton talks with the Russian Larry King
Last night at midnight, Russia finally got to see Vladimir Pozner, its Larry King, sit down with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. (The show is normally live, but this was taped right before Hillary’s Friday night departure from Moscow.) … Continue reading
Chicken: Russian Central Election Committee chair asks for a friendlier journalist to interview him on the air
Today, I was supposed to go on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to participate in a show called “Face to Face,” in which one Russian and one foreign journalist interview a local bigwig. Because some key regional elections were last weekend … Continue reading
So that's what happens to Olympic funding in Russia (surprise! corruption!)
Since I seem to be on an Olympics kick this week — or, rather, a why-Russia-bombed-in-Vancouver kick — let’s continue with this story: A high-ranking Russian athletics official has been arrested for demanding a hefty slice off a government disbursement … Continue reading
