December 11:
Moscow has seen its largest protest to date, as up to 50,000 people gathered in Bolotnaya Square, chanting slogans like “Putin out!” and “Give us back our elections!” What made this protest especially notable, reports the Washington Times, is that whereas early demonstrations were mostly attended by informed youth, Saturday’s protests involved pensioners, teenagers, and even young families, along with veteran opposition activists. “We don’t want revolution, and we don’t want blood,” said one participant. “We have a good financial situation, but we understand that something has to change. If we lose this moment, it will never come again.” Opposition groups have called for another protest on December 24th if the government doesn’t agree to re-do the elections.
December 12:
Moscow and Washington are expanding cooperation in cyberspace. “[N]o fail communications mechanisms” and “regular exchanges on technical threats” are now under consideration between Russia and the U.S., in spite of growing political tensions between the two countries, the Moscow Times reports. The new mechanisms would augment already existing bilateral crisis-response links, such as the Nuclear Risk Reduction Center, and are intended to set up durable lines of communication “in case of ‘an alarming incident.’” According to White House cybersecurity coordinator Howard Schmidt, the first three such cybersecurity-related cooperative mechanisms between Russia and the U.S. will be in place by the end of the month.
December 13:
Two high-ranking employees of the Russian news magazine Kommersant Vlast have been fired over coverage of the elections which suggested public discontent over the outcome. According to the New York Times, the election issue of Kommersant Vlast not only chronicled the plethora of electoral fraud accusations made against the United Russia party, but additionally included a photo of a ballot on which someone wrote profanity directed at Vladimir Putin. Days later, the editor-in-chief and a top executive at the magazine were dismissed, and another deputy editor resigned. Critics have suggested that while the Kremlin typically allows for some freedom of the press, there has been a crackdown over the elections. “It’s dead clear,” said one journalist. “This is a signal sent to the entire mass media in the country: guys, be careful. There are limits.”
December 14:
In a move that has raised tensions with the Kremlin, the Obama administration has insisted that it will continue to “forcefully” speak out about human rights violations in Russia. The friction, the New York Times reports, began when U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton criticized Russia’s contested Duma elections, which quickly drew the ire of Prime Minister Putin. “[W]hile we will continue to pursue our common interests,” said Phil Gordon, assistant secretary of state for Europe, the U.S. will “never be shy about talking frankly about our differences... [O]ur aim now is to deepen the reset [of bilateral relations] and widen the arc of our cooperation.”
December 15:
Blogs and social networks have become a driving force for Russia’s ongoing protests. Over the past four years,reports the Washington Post, the number of daily internet users in Russia has tripled, with the largest growth in usage registering among young Russians. And although most televised media is controlled by the state, the internet remains largely uncensored. Despite talk of curbing this freedom as well, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin recently insisted in a public address that restrictions would be both laborious and “wrong” - a move interpreted by critics as a sop to the country's youth, and a gambit to dampen political tensions.
December 2:
After it first insisted that any Syrian-related intervention by the international community should be handled by the UN Security Council, Russia now has blocked a move to refer human rights violations by the Assad regime to the body, BusinessWeek reports. Joined in by China, Cuba, and Ecuador, Russia’s ambassador to the UN justified the stance by saying that it “wasn’t the function of the 15-nation Security Council... to pursue confrontation.” Turkey has already imposed its own sanctions on the Assad regime, as did the United States, the European Union, and the Arab League, which suspended Syria’s membership in November.
