Free Republic

When Russia annexed Crimea, the Kremlin installed a reputed gangster known as "the Goblin" to run the peninsula. When Moscow's agents abducted Estonian law enforcement officer Eston Kohver, they used a mafia-run smuggling ring to set him up. And of course, organized crime groups have played a prominent role in the Moscow-instigated conflicts in Transdniester, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Donbas. It has become something of a cliche to call Vladimir Putin's Russia a "mafia state." But cliche or not, the term actually fits. Not just because the Kremlin and organized crime groups are closely linked. And not just because Moscow...

Konstantin Goldenzweig resigned from the Kremlin-backed NTV channel Renowned Russian journalist Konstantin Goldenzweig has resigned from state-funded TV channel 'NTV' after becoming disenchanted with the Kremlin's misinformation campaign. He announced the move through Facebook on June 9, TJ reports. "I want to thank all my colleagues who helped me, taught me, encouraged me and were my friends. And continue to be my friends. And sorry for taking part in this propaganda madness. There is only one banal conclusion: the deals with your own conscience are only as good as those you can cancel" - Goldenzweig wrote.

The trial of Dzhokar Tsarnaev has gripped America, but in Russia the Boston bomber’s trial has received little media coverage, with even the arrival of five Tsarnaev family members from Russia to testify receiving no attention. The relatives are staying in Massachusetts over the weekend, after a sick juror meant their testimony for the defence could not be heard on Thursday. But Russian state-controlled media has shown little interest in their trip to the US, and a decision appears to have been taken that the Tsarnaevs’ links to Russia should be played down. On 8 April, the jury convicted Tsarnaev...

National Review published a rather overheated piece the other day that contained an entertaining line: “Russia has become the Soviet Union with a better suit”. The idea that Russia is fundamentally the same as the Soviet Union is a popular one, particularly on the political right where “Soviet” has for decades served as a synonym for “bad.” Barely a day goes by without someone bemoaning Putin’s “Soviet” character or the “neo-Soviet” policies that Russia pursues in its part of the world. However this idea is deeply mistaken and extremely misleading, and can only be held by deliberately ignoring a huge...

US journalist David Satter, a longtime critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Monday he had been banned from the country in one of the first such expulsions since the Cold War. Satter, a former Financial Times and Wall Street Journal correspondent who published three books on Russia and the former Soviet Union, had been living and working in the country since September 2013 as an adviser for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. The US government-funded broadcaster said that the US Embassy in Moscow has been informed of the move and lodged a formal diplomatic protest. Embassy officials have sought and...

Northcom says Russian nuclear bombers violated U.S. airspace during arctic war games The U.S. Northern Command and joint U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) Command said two Russian bombers violated U.S. airspace near Alaska during recent arctic war games.Disclosure by the command in charge of U.S. homeland defense followed a report in the Free Beacon quoting U.S. officials who said the Russian aircraft had threatened U.S. air space but did not cross into it and were met over the Pacific by U.S. F-15 interceptor jets. “There was a single out-of-area patrol by two Russian
long range bombers which entered the Alaska...