MOSCOW — In late January in Russia, the economic figures from the previous year are released. Supporters of the government have done their best to put a favourable gloss on the latest numbers, but the truth cannot be concealed
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MOSCOW — When the bright young reformers around Russian President Boris Yeltsin quit their Communist Party membership years ago and turned to building capitalism, they were acting from deep-seated ideological conviction. We have
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MOSCOW — Between September 1 and January 12, voters cast their ballots in elections for the top executive posts in more than 50 of Russia's 89 provinces, territories and ethnic republics. In slightly more than half of these
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Russian teachers strike for wage pay-outMOSCOW — When more than 3 million Russian school pupils ended their annual winter holidays in mid-January, some students did not return to class at all, as teachers who had gone unpaid
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MOSCOW — In the first referendum of its kind in Russia, residents of an economically hard-hit rural area voted overwhelmingly during December to halt the building of a nuclear power plant. The victory for anti-nuclear
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MOSCOW — As Russian nuclear safety campaigner Aleksandr Nikitin nears the first anniversary of his arrest for espionage, he is able to walk the streets of St Petersburg, more or less a free man. But although Nikitin was released
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MOSCOW — In a vote riddled with fraud, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko on November 24 secured victory in a referendum aimed at allowing him to introduce a new, super-"presidential" constitution. Official figures claimed
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MOSCOW — What was it that replaced "communism" in Russia? Democracy, someone said? Journalists who value their reputations no longer make that claim, except with extensive reservations. But it is often asserted that with
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MOSCOW — In one of the largest political gatherings in the Russian capital since the late 1980s, tens of thousands of workers demonstrated near Red Square on November 5 in a trade union-organised rally "For Work, Wages and
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MOSCOW — Every year in Moscow, despite resistance from the authorities and condemnation from the official press, mass demonstrations take place on November 7. The anniversary of the October revolution
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MOSCOW — For months, political crisis has gripped Belarus, the former Soviet republic of 10 million people on Russia's western border. President Alyaksandr Lukashenko, like Russia's Boris Yeltsin in the early autumn of 1993, is
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MOSCOW — After eight months in prison, Russian anti-nuclear activist Aleksandr Nikitin has now had formal charges brought against him. On October 2, the Federal Security Service (FSB) announced that it had completed its