Tag Archives: putin

NY Dispatches: COVID-19 and Russia – part 2

Posted on March 28, 2020 by

This week, following a warning from Moscow mayor Sergey Sobyanin, the number of registered COVID-19 cases in Russia has surged as the country stepped up testing. The government now encourages people to stay home and has sought emergency powers. Vladimir … Continue reading →

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NY Dispatches: Putin – president for life?

Posted on March 11, 2020 by

With today’s constitutional amendment that will set the number of his presidential terms back to zero, Vladimir Putin shocked Russian citizens, Russia-watchers and created even more ambiguity about his post-2024 plans. But this will come at a cost.

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NY Dispatches: The shape of the constitution

Posted on February 17, 2020 by

Friday was going to be the (extended) deadline for presenting amendments to Vladimir Putin’s constitutional reform bill that the State Duma adopted in the first reading in January. Pavel Krasheninnikov, the co-chair of the constitutional reform working group however announced … Continue reading →

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NY Dispatches: What we know and what we don’t

Posted on January 27, 2020 by

The past two weeks have seen seemingly transformative political developments happen at a breathtaking speed in Russia. Vladimir Putin proposed a series of constitutional reforms. In a little more than a week those reforms were spelled out in a draft … Continue reading →

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Putin’s endgame

Posted on January 16, 2020 by

Vladimir Putin unveiled a set of sweeping constitutional amendments, Dmitry Medvedev’s government resigned, Russia’s new prime minister is a little-known tax official and Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov is “temporarily incapacitated”. And all of this happened within a couple of hours. … Continue reading →

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NY Dispatches: 2020 – plans and reality

Posted on January 10, 2020 by

According to an old adage, a political analyst is a person who is able to give a coherent prediction of what is going to happen in six months’ time, and also able to explain coherently, in six months’ time, why … Continue reading →

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United they stand

Posted on December 22, 2019 by

The ruling United Russia’s congress in November seemed to confirm that Russia’s leaders intend to rely on the party in the early 2020s as Vladimir Putin’s fourth presidential term draws to an end. This was significant because recent years have … Continue reading →

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