Russia Reform Monitor: No. 1822

March 1:

Russian President Vladimir Putin was quick in his December state of the nation address to laud the first indications of population growth in over two decades, crediting the Kremlin’s demographic programs enacted over the last decade for producing the change. Experts now caution that the president’s optimism might be misplaced. Financial Times reports that although Russia’s official population grew more than 200,000 between January and September of 2012, those numbers were largely the result of immigration, rather than an increasing birth rate. “You can get any level of growth you want from migration,” noted one expert. “It simply depends on the policy and how easy it is to register migrants.” Such a trend would be far less predictable than a population spike resulting from an increasing birth rate. Moreover, analysts note the country’s “very unfavorable age structure,” in which the number of women of child-bearing age is expected to fall quickly as the population ages, suggesting that the population’s future growth is less than certain. Current Kremlin policies seek to increase the population by three million by 2025.

March 2:

Thousands of Russians gathered to protest after a U.S. court cleared the American adoptive parents of a Russian boy of wrongdoing in his death last month. The protestors, many of whom were activists from pro-Kremlin children’s advocacy groups, urged a ban on all foreign adoptions, and demanded the return of the boy’s brother, who still lives with the American couple. Several protestors called the court’s verdict “American propaganda,” and one activist chanted “Our children are not a commodity.” Agence France Presse reports that between ten and twelve thousand people attended the rally, although organizers claimed the numbers were closer to twenty thousand.

March 5:

The 60th anniversary of the death of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin provoked mixed reactions from the Russian people. The Associated Press reports that while critics blamed the former leader for the deaths of millions of people in gulags and purges, communist supporters laid flowers at Stalin’s tomb in Moscow. Polls suggest that popular Russian opinion remains split over the controversial dictator, an uncertainty reflected by newspaper headlines ranging from the words “Stalin. Farewell” scrawled in graffiti over Stalin’s image, to “His time will come,” ahead of an introspective piece in a Communist paper.

March 7:

Corruption concerns in the preparations for the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi have led to requests for an official investigation against the former Deputy Head of the country’s Olympic Committee. Russia’s prosecutor general accused the man, Akhmed Bilalov, with misusing funds while acting as head of the company in charge of building the Olympic ski jump. During construction, the Associated Press reports, costs skyrocketed from the expected $40 million to $265 million. Officials maintain that the drastic price increase was the result of the company’s use of funds to pay for lavish business trips. Bilalov resigned from his position after construction delays drew sharp criticism from President Putin, and news reports claim that he left Russia soon after for an unknown destination.

According to Russia’s anti-terrorism committee, Russian forces killed the leader of one of the extremist rebel groups based in the restive North Caucasus, along with two other militants. The leader, Adam Khushalayev, also known as Abu-Malik, had been wanted by authorities for over a decade, Reuters reports, and took over as head of the group after its rebel leaders were killed earlier this year. The Caucasus Emirate group in which Khushalayev’s cell operates is responsible for numerous terrorist attacks on Russia, including an airport bombing in 2011, and a metro bombing in 2010, and has additionally sworn to target the upcoming Olympic Games in Sochi.

March 8:

A senior U.S. official accused China and Russia of attempting to “control” Internet communications. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports that Alec Ross, the U.S. Secretary of State’s senior advisor for innovation, said that the two countries have been buying powerful surveillance technology since Iran’s failed presidential elections in 2009. He added that the laws in both countries offer few restrictions to prevent authorities from using the new technology to effectively monitor their citizens.