Anarchy Counts

Organizing Revolt from the stimulator on Vimeo.

Pussy Riot And The Relativity of Outrage

The above clip from Grani-TV.ru illustrates the strong feelings evoked in Russia by the Pussy Riot case. Counterpunch published closing statements from two of the defendants: Yekatrina Samusevich

"Our sudden musical appearance in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior with the song “Mother of God, Drive Putin Out” violated the integrity of this media image, generated and maintained by the authorities for so long, and revealed its falsity. In our performance we dared, without the Patriarch’s blessing, to combine the visual image of Orthodox culture and protest culture, suggesting to smart people that Orthodox culture belongs not only to the Russian Orthodox Church, the Patriarch and Putin, that it might also take the side of civic rebellion and protest in Russia. Perhaps such an unpleasant large-scale effect from our media intrusion into the cathedral was a surprise to the authorities themselves. First they tried to present our performance as the prank of heartless militant atheists. But they made a huge blunder, since by this time we were already known as an anti-Putin feminist punk band that carried out their media raids on the country’s major political symbols. In the end, considering all the irreversible political and symbolic losses caused by our innocent creativity, the authorities decided to protect the public from us and our nonconformist thinking. Thus ended our complicated punk adventure in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior."

and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova

"We are grateful to all those who, free themselves, speak out in our support. There are a vast number, I know. I know that a huge number of Orthodox people are standing up for us. They are praying for us outside the courtroom, for the members of Pussy Riot who are incarcerated. We’ve seen the little booklets Orthodox people are handing out with prayers for those in prison. This shows that there isn’t a unified social group of Orthodox believers as the prosecution is endeavouring to say. No such thing exists. More and more believers are starting to defend Pussy Riot. They don’t think what we did deserves even five months in detention, much less the three years in prison the prosecutor would like. And every day, more and more people realize that if this political system has ganged up to this extent against three girls for a 30-second performance in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, it means the system is afraid of the truth and afraid of our sincerity and directness. We haven’t dissembled, not for a second, not for a minute during this trial, but the other side is dissembling too much and people can sense it. People can sense the truth. Truth really does have some kind of ontological, existential superiority over lies and this is written in the Bible, in the Old Testament in particular. In the end, the ways of truth always triumph over the ways of wickedness, guile and lies. And with each day that passes, the ways of truth are more and more triumphant even though we are still behind bars and are likely to be here a lot longer yet."

While one can respect the risk these women have taken I would ask those in the West who embrace their cause where they stand on the case of Bradley Manning who faces life in prison or Julian Assange who potentially faces death for basically acting as an investigative journalist. These cases raise similar issues involving free speech and freedom of information that challenge the notion of freedom and justice in both societies.

Russian Riot Grrlls in The Cathedral

Russian punk group Pussy Riot recently invaded Christ the Savior cathedral in Moscow to take on both the church and state. The Russian Orthodox church has resumed its traditional role as a reinforcement of the the status quo much as in Tsarist times. Russians are regularly subjected on holidays to the sight of politicians attempting to appear as pious as possible which no doubt is a major effort. Eurasia Review provides more details:

March 7, 2012 President-elect Vladimir Putin described on Wednesday a protest at Moscow’s largest cathedral by all-female punk group Pussy Riot as “unpleasant for all believers,” but made no mention of possible lengthy jail sentences faced by two alleged band members. “If the girls disturbed the peace of the cathedral, then this is unpleasant for all believers,” he said. “I hope it will not be repeated.” Putin demonstrated a very “negative” reaction when told about Pussy Riot’s performance of what they called a “punk prayer” on the altar of the downtown Christ the Savior Cathedral on February 21, his spokesman said earlier in the day. “We don’t know anything about the content of the song,” Dmitry Peskov told the independent Dozhd (Rain) TV channel. “We do know, however, of course about this disgusting incident.” Despite his past as a KGB officer in the officially atheist Soviet Union, Putin presents himself as pious believer and is often shown in state media at church services. Four members of the group, clad in bright balaclavas, bowed and crossed themselves as they sang an acapella version of a song entitled “Holy Sh*t” at the cathedral. The lyrics included lines such as “Holy Mother, Blessed Virgin, chase Putin out!” The group said the act was a protest against public support for Putin by the powerful Orthodox Church’s head, Patriarch Kirill, who took up residence in the Kremlin last year. Pussy Riot first hit the headlines in January, when they raced through a musical diatribe against Putin on a snowy Red Square, calling for “Revolt in Russia!” and chanting “Putin’s got scared” before being detained by police. Maria Alekhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova were detained on March 4 as Russians voted in presidential polls that handed Putin a third term after a four-year hiatus. The cathedral performance came amid ongoing anti-Putin protests in Moscow and other cities. The two women were remanded in custody on Monday until April 24 and could face up to seven years behind bars on hooliganism charges. Both deny their involvement and are on hunger strike to protest the decision to refuse them bail. Alekhina has a five-year-old son and Tolokonnikova a four-year-old daughter. Guelman went on to accuse the patriarch of “provoking” the performance in the cathedral with his “very active participation in the recent polls.” He also suggested that Putin had been helped greatly by the Church during his election campaign and had “decided to answer in kind.” Patriarch Kirill praised Putin as Russia’s “savior” during a televised meeting during the election campaign, and also advised believers to stay at home and “pray” instead of going on anti-government rallies. “We don’t have any direct evidence that Putin or Patriarch Kirill ordered the opening of the case,” Alekhina and Tolokonnikova’s lawyer, Nikolai Polozov, told RIA Novosti. “But it’s obvious some levers were pulled.” Polozov added that the case against his clients was opened with unusual haste after the initial complaint. “It took a few hours, when the process usually takes a couple of weeks – or even a month.” He also said he could not rule out that his clients could be jailed for seven years, citing the case of opposition activist Taisiya Osipova, the diabetic mother of a five-year-old girl, who was handed a ten-year sentence on drug charges late last year. Osipova’s sentence was annulled in mid-February after President Dmitry Medvedev intervened. She remains behind bars while a new investigation is carried out. “But even a couple of months would be absolutely too much for what they did,” said Polozov. A number of religious figures have urged leniency for Alekhina and Tolokonnikova, including senior Church official Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin. “It’s wonderful that the police have been serious about their investigation into this crime,” he said on Wednesday. “But leniency should be shown…there is no need to jail them.” He called however for a “serious” punishment for the accused for “insulting the feelings of believers.” Russian blogger and opposition figurehead Alexei Navalny also called for Alekhina and Tolokonnikova to be freed. “Their actions in the Christ the Savior Cathedral were idiotic and there is nothing to argue about here,” he wrote in his Live Journal blog. “But are their crimes so dangerous for society that the woman should be kept behind bars? The answer is obvious – no.” Russia’s increasingly politicized Internet community has come out against the jailing of the women, with over 3,000 people having singed an online petition urging the patriarch to “petition the court to close the case.”

St. Patricks Day On Old Arbat Moscow, День Святого Патрика на Старом Арбате (2012)

Russblogger sends this video of the St. Patrick's Day parade on Starry Arbat, Moscow attended by 7,000 people.

Rosatom-owned company accused of selling shoddy equipment to reactors at home and abroad, pocketing profits

The issues of nuclear power, the nuclear fuel cycle, weapons proliferation, and safety are virtually inseparable. These latest developments at Rosatom owned ZiO-Podolsk, highlights safety and nuclear power. Bellona elaborates:

"Russian Federal Prosecutors have accused a company owned by the country’s nuclear energy corporation, Rosatom, with massive corruption and manufacturing substandard equipment for nuclear reactors under construction both at home and abroad. Charles Digges, 28/02-2012 The ZiO-Podolsk machine building plant’s procurement director, Sergei Shutov, has been arrested for buying low quality raw materials on the cheap and pocketing the difference as the result of an investigation by the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the successor organization to the KGB. It is not clear how many reactors have been impacted by the alleged crime, but reactors built by Russia in India, Bulgaria, Iran, China as well as several reactor construction and repair projects in Russia itself may have been affected by cheap equipment, given the time frame of works completed at the stations and the scope of the investigation as it has been revealed by authorities. “The scope of this scandal could reach every reactor in Russian and every reactor built by Russia over the past several years and demands immediate investigation,” said Bellona President Frederic Hauge. “Were is the political leadership in the Russian government to deal with such a crime?" Hauge expressed outrage that an alleged crime of such a massive scale was not leading to immediate action to check each reactor that may have been affected by the profit pocketing scheme, and he was frustrated that the FSB and prosecutors were not naming specific reactors that may be involved. “As long as the Russian government is not investigating this case correctly, we will have to ask international society to do it,” he said. “Bellona will be taking further action in this case.” Vladimir Slivyak, co chair of Russia’s Ecodefense agreed. “Stopping and conducting full-scale checks of reactors where equipment from ZiO-Podolsk has been installed is absolutely necessary,” said Slivyak. “Otherwise [there is] the risk of a serious accident at a nuclear power plant with cleanup bills stretching into the tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars [that] will have to be footed by taxpayers.” The criminal case was opened against ZiO-Poldolsk in December, but information about the investigation was released in the Russia media via the official Rosbalt agency only last week – a common circumstance in FSB-associated investigations. The charges leveled against ZiO-Podolsk, which is Russia’s only manufacturer of steam generators for nuclear plants built by Rosatom domestically and by its international reactor construction subsidiary Atomstroiproyekt are a staggering blow to Rosatom’s credibility. ZiO-Podolsk is a subsidiary organization of Atomenergomash, founded in 2006. Atomenergomash was acquired by Atomenergoprom, which is 100-percent state-owned, in 2007. Atomenergoprom is a part of Rosatom. But the paperwork is rather a technicality for a machine works that has been involved with the nuclear industry since its inception. Founded in 1919, ZiO-Podolsk produced the boiler for the first electricity-producing nuclear reactor at Obninsk in 1952, and has produced the boilers for every Russian reactor built ever since. A shudder in the environmental community According to prosecutors, ZiO-Podolsk began shipping shoddy equipment in 2007 or perhaps even earlier. This has implications for the safety of nuclear power plants built by, or that bought equipment from, Rosatom in Bulgaria, China, India and Iran – as well as Russia – striking a chord of outrage and distress among environmental groups. ZiO-Podolsk is also making critical parts for the reactor pressure vessel and other main equipment for the BN-800 fast reactor at Beloyarsk Nuclear Power Plant, in Russia’s Sverdlovsk Region in the Urals, a source told Bellona on the condition of anonymity. The machine works giant is also making steam generators for Russia’s Novovoronezh, Kalinin, and Leningrad Nuclear Power Plants, and Belene in Bulgaria, according to the London-based World Nuclear Association. The case assembled against ZiO-Podolsk involves embezzlement of state funding intended for purchases of raw material that are compatible with contemporary safety standards for nuclear reactors, Rosbalt reported. The FSB investigation According to the FSB investigation – which was described in unusual detail by the news wire – procurement director Shutov allegedly purchased low-grade steel for equipment in collusion with ZiO-Podolsk’s supplier AТОМ-Industriya. That company’s general director, Dmitry Golubev, is currently at large after embezzlement charges were filed against him by the same Moscow court that ordered Shutov’s arrest, Rosbalt quoted FSB sources as saying. The scheme between Shutov and Golubev allegedly involved Shutov turning a blind eye to inferior quality steel in return for a large portion of the profits reaped by ATOM-Industriya, the FSB told Rosbalt, citing transactions that were accounted for in bookkeeping documents the security service said it confiscated from the financial director of ATOM-Industriya. “This company purchased cheap steel in Ukraine and then passed it off as [a] more expensive [grade]; the revenues were shared by the scam’s organizers,” an FSB source was quoted by Rosbalt as saying. FSB agents said that ATOM-Industriya produced some 100 million roubles’ (€2.5 million) worth of pipe sheets, reactor pit bottoms, and reservoirs for ZiO-Podolsk – equipment that was delivered to Russian and foreign reactors – including an order of so-called tube plates for high-pressure heaters at Bulgaria’s Kozloduy NPP. High-pressure heaters, while having no relation to the safe operation of reactors, are used to improve efficiency of power output."

Vladimir Putin's Arrest or Not

A satirical Russian video depicting the arrest of Vladimir Putin for theft of state property. Even more satirical would be the executives of Goldman-Sachs, and various other American oligarchs in a similar satire (since we know this would never happen here).

Nuclear Near-Miss With Russian Sub Fire

Another nuclear near-miss, this time involving a Russian submarine fire that could have resulted in the cook off of 64 nuclear warheads. The Guardian goes into greater detail:

"Russian officials said at the time that all nuclear weapons aboard the Yekaterinburg nuclear submarine had been unloaded well before a fire engulfed the 167-metre (550 feet) vessel and there had been no risk of a radiation leak. But the respected Vlast weekly magazine quoted several sources in the Russian navy as saying that throughout the fire on 29 December the submarine was carrying 16 R-29 intercontinental ballistic missiles, each armed with four nuclear warheads. "Russia, for a day, was on the brink of the biggest catastrophe since the time of Chernobyl," Vlast reported. The 1986 disaster in modern-day Ukraine is regarded as the world's worst nuclear accident..... The fire started when welding sparks ignited wooden scaffolding around the 18,200-tonne submarine at the Roslyakovo docks, 1,500 km (900 miles) north of Moscow and one of the main shipyards used by Russia's northern fleet. The rubber covering of the submarine then caught fire, sending flames and black smoke 10 metres (30 feet) above the stricken vessel. Firemen battled the blaze for a day and a night before partially sinking the submarine to douse the flames, according to media reports. Vlast reported that immediately after the fire the Yekaterinburg sailed to the navy's weapons store, an unusual trip for a damaged submarine supposedly carrying no weapons and casting doubt on assurances that it was not armed. "K-84 was in dock with rockets and torpedoes on board," the magazine said, adding that apart from the nuclear weapons the submarine was carrying torpedoes and mines as well as its two nuclear reactors."

It's like nuclear powers are asking the world more often than than we might imagine or wish a'la Clint Eastwood, " Do you feel lucky?"

Putin vs. Russian Riot Gurrls

Russian punk feminist band Pussy Riot put on a brief performance of "Revolt in Russia" in Red Square shortly before being hauled off by the authorities. Their website is here.

Red Elvises "Cosmonaut Petrov"

Russian Urban Exploring

Lana Sator has a blog dedicated to forgotten, never finished, and other military objects in modern day Russia.

Russia’s Smouldering 'White Revolution'

People keep asking me about the so-called "White Revolution" in Russia. If it really represents the incredibly diverse Russian public opinion it will still be unpalatable to Western Corporate Oligarchies. Nicola N. Petro gives a breakdown of the forces in Russia propelling a movement with unpredictable outcomes:

"Five groups of the protest movement As presently constituted, the protest movement can be divided into roughly five groups: (1) The most popular group consists of artists, poets, television personalities, writers, and journalists. People like Artemy Troitsky, who came to the last rally dressed as a condom, Leonid Parfyonov, Boris Akunin, Dmitry Bykov, Olga Romanova, singer Alexei Kortnev, and socialite Kseniya Sobchak. They all make it a point, however, to declare that they are 'non-political,' that their concern is to give the nation back its 'moral voice.' 2) Another large group at these protests have been Russian nationalists like Vladimir Tor, and 'true communists' like Sergei Udaltsov. Udaltsov, a scion of the Old Bolshevik elite—one of Moscow’s streets is named after his great-grandfather—parted ways with other communist organizations when the failed to adequately reflect, in his view, worker’s interests. His latest project, the Russian United Labor Front--Left Front, also objects to mere party politics and calls for power to be transferred directly to the working masses. Tor, on the other hand, is one of the perennial leaders of the right wing 'Russian March,' which also counts blogger Alexei Navalny among its participants.[3] He also abjures the divisive term 'party politics', preferring to speak on behalf of the whole Russian nation. While many at Sakharov Square might wish to distance the protests from his appeal 'Russia for Russians,' as Tor pointed in his address to the crowd, the nationalist protesters in Manezh square in Moscow who battled riot police last February share one important bond with the current protests--an uncompromising hostility to political authority. 'Without the heroes of Manezh,' Tor reminded the audience, 'there would never have been a Bolotnaya.'[4] (3) Smaller in number, but much better known, are the perennial leaders of the Old Opposition, figures like Vladimir Ryzhkov, Boris Nemtsov, Mikhail Kasyanov, Garry Kasparov, and Grigory Yavlinsky. While some have worked in the government, they have all publicly broken with Putin, and now demand that the entire political system be reconstituted. Their personal ambitions have prevented them from agreeing on a common political strategy, much less a joint list of candidates. As a result, while theoretically they could represent the beginnings of a political opposition, in practice they have placed themselves at a safe remove from the political process. NAvalny_Sakharov_square_meeting The blogger and anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny was released from prison on 20 Dec, four days before the Moscow rally. He was jailed for 15 days for marching in one of the previous unsanctioned opposition protests. ‘I see enough people here to take the Kremlin and the White House right now, but we are a peaceful force,’ Alexei Navalny told the crowd. (Photo: drugoi.livejournal) (4) A fourth group is one I call the new Internet Opposition. It is composed of people like Alexei Navalny, Evgenia Chirikova, Grigory Melkonyants, and Ilya Yashin, who have developed a core following among Russia’s rapidly burgeoning internet community. Navalny is the most charismatic of this group. He has made clear that he considers himself a politician, and that he will run for office (under a different system). For now, however, his political views are hard to pin down. He is all things to all people, refusing, for example, to even discuss whether a (hypothetical) political party he might lead would be on the left or the right side of the political spectrum.[5] With the exception of Navalny and Yashin, who were once active in Yabloko (Navalny also served briefly as an advisor to Belykh in Kirov), their rise to prominence has been largely due to persecution by the authorities and devotion for a single cause, be it corruption, the environment, or election monitoring. Their persecution has garnered them “street cred,” but not much else. Some in the Old Opposition thinks these youngsters look to them for guidance, and that they will ride into political office on the latter’s coat tails. I very much doubt it. (5) The latest addition to protest movement are individuals who have been part of, or directly benefited from, the Putin regime but have since abandoned it. They include former finance minister Alexei Kudrin, oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov, and “A Just Russia” deputy Ilya Ponomarev. While they too reject the Old Opposition and share the values of the Internet Opposition, at the last two mass rallies they were met by resounding disapproval. Prokhorov, for example, chose not to address the crowd in Sakharov Square after being hectored by shouts of “Go back to Courchevel”—the Swiss ski resort favoured by Russian nouveau riches. The crowd’s antipathy to individuals with practical political experience are once again on full display here. Thus, by default, the government retains the sole practical political agenda and, as such, its dominance is unassailable. It can easily afford to wait for opposition leaders to devour each other as they have so often in the past. It can then step in to co-opt the best and the brightest by giving them the opportunity to apply themselves in the only meaningful political game in town. ‘… the government retains the sole practical political agenda and, as such, its dominance is unassailable. It can easily afford to wait for opposition leaders to devour each other as they have so often in the past."

Oligarchies, American and Russian

russblogger has some video from the 24th in Moscow on Sakhorov Prospecket. The driving force behind these events in Russia have more to do with income inequality rather than so called freedom. Reading the NYT and the WashPO are probably the worst way of following reality in Russia. Americans are only now coming to grips with the fact the country is basically an oligarchic kleptocracy. Both countries show that the real issue in elections is not vote fraud but vote tampering and suppression. Vladimir Putin is not Josef Stalin and U.S. media has great difficulty coming to deal with this. The concerns of the Russian people are quite similar to Americans as they both adjust to former super-power status and acknowledgement of oligarchic kleptocracies that run the world. Luke Harding gives one of the more succinct explanations of power in Russia:

"Putin’s system, Harding writes, has created ‘the most unequal society in Russia’s history’. To keep the have-nots at arm’s length, the wealthiest Russians live in exclusive, walled-off residential compounds like those along the Rublyovo-Uspenskoye Road outside Moscow. But since the highest fliers among Russia’s nouveaux riches lead an essentially borderless existence, their most prized gated communities are located in the West. Those who own real estate abroad include numerous public officials and civil servants: ‘Russian bureaucrats have their houses and families in London, and their children are going to Cambridge and Oxford.’ The reason this ‘very strange political class’ craves an extraterritorial foothold is illuminating: ‘They keep their money outside Russia because none of them believes in Russia and none of them believes in official stability. All of them know that this stability could be finished any day.’ They don’t believe in official stability because, as the ones responsible for guaranteeing it, they are aware of their own limitations. For all their talk about ‘the restoration of Russia’s superpower status’, Russia’s senior political officials have an astonishingly ‘primitive mission’, which is to ‘take this money outside Russia, buy houses outside Russia and give their children a future abroad’. Russia’s affluent classes are irresistibly drawn to relocate their assets to countries where there appears to be a future. Their lack of confidence doesn’t reflect a fear that the government they work for is too strong and may one day initiate mass confiscations. Their worry, on the contrary, is that their government isn’t stable enough to protect their investments."

This doesn't sound a lot different from American Corporations off shoring assets to prevent them from actually assisting the country in which their workers actually live in and products are sold.

Your Papa's a Fascist: рок-группа Телевизор "Твой папа - фашист"

A reprise of a now prescient video.

Thousands Protest Election Fraud in Moscow: Беспорядки 5 декабря у Чистых прудов

Russblogger provides footage of rally of several thousand resulting in the arrest of 300 people protesting election fraud in Moscow December 5th.

Booing United Russia: Коменданте: Против "уплотниловки". Народ освистал "Е.Р."

United Russia gets a less than enthusiastic reception from "Komendante", pensioners, and people concerned about pollution. The outrage against vote tampering in Russian parliamentary elections could be instructive to Americans who are dealing with voter suppression, and tampering with every election. As Josef Stalin (a closet republican) said, " It's not those who vote that count but those who count the votes."

Walker-Putin Conspiracy Against Democracy

In an unintended coincidence both Scott Walker and Vladimir Putin cracked down on democracy in their respective fiefdoms. Putin decided to put a stop to the group Golos (or Voice) from putting out pesky reports about voter suppression in Russia. Meanwhile the Tsar of Fitzwalkerstan has made it almost impossible for citizens to voice their opinions around the state capitol. I for one think we should ask Golos to monitor any elections in Fitzwalkerstan and report the results to the U.N.

Assorted Protests

The video from russblogger is entitled Elections Without Opposition is a Crime the others refer to the gradual ratcheting up of response to OWS across this country. The picket in Moscow occurs every Tuesday. The police have their own buses for hauling off demonstrators. I expect soon we will have similar arrangements in the future. As Lincoln Steffens said after his visit to Russia : " I've seen the future and it works." Americans are always slightly behind Russians in this respect. When they figure out that elections don't change anything we will see the next step.

Russia 1992 and now

Protests become more global. Russian communists (the real opposition) come out to the streets to mark the Yeltsin oppression. When I went there in 1998 it took a while for me to understand why most Russians didn't feel that IMF or World Bank "Help" was anything but..."

Politkovskaya Revisited

More info on the Politkovskaya hit: "The nuanced and explosive case of Anna Politkovskaya continues to stretch its tentacles far and wide, as investigators and a key witness pin the blame on Russian exile Boris Berezovsky. Dmitry Pavlyuchenkov, former Moscow police boss currently under arrest, has made a pre-trial agreement with the sleuths and given detailed testimony on the murder of the Novaya Gazeta journalist, naming Berezovsky as the man who ordered her death. Pavlyuchenkov’s damning indictment tallies with leads already uncovered by the Investigative Committee, Kommersant reported. Recent breakthroughs concerning Pavlyuchenkov and supposed gunman Rustam Makhmudov have won the support of Novaya Gazeta and point to a political will to get to the bottom of the case, Tim Roth in Russia Profile wrote. Not the first time This is not the first occasion that now London based Berezovsky’s name has appeared in the case. In 2008 Dmitry Dovgy, former chief investigator in the Prosecutor General’s office who was sacked and convicted for corruption, told Izvestia soon after he was suspended that Berezovsky had ordered the killing. Berezovsky dismissed the accusations in an interview with Ekho Moskvy radio. “This is another attempt to distract the investigation from searching for the real person behind the murder,” the tycoon said, RIA Novosti cited. He has been on Russia’s wanted list for a number of crimes since falling out with Vladimir Putin after his arrival in the president’s office. Killers for hire The latest allegations connect Berezovsky with a supposed group of hired thugs, cobbled together by Chechen crime lord Lom-Ali Gaitukayev. At first engaged in different suspect practices, they are then believed to have turned their hands to murder on demand. The group included ex-millionaire Sergei Kadzhikurebanov, the Dzhabrail brothers, Ibragim and Rustam Makhmudov and Pavlyuchenkov. Kadzhikurebanov is currently serving eight years for extorting money from Pavlyuchenkov and Gaitukayev is doing 15 years for organizing an assassination attempt on businessman Gennady Korban in Ukraine in 2006. Pavlyuchenkov acquired the address and knowledge of Politkovskaya’s usual comings and goings through some of his junior police officers and gave an Izh gas pistol, converted to fire live ammunition, to the Makhmudov brothers. They then shot Politkovskaya in the lift of her stairwell on Oct. 7, 2006, Putin’s birthday, Kommersant reported. One favor for another The Investigative Committee recently finished interrogating Pavlyuchenkov and will soon present the fruits of its work on him to a court. As long as there are no surprises the document will secure the ex-cop at least a minimum term, Kommersant reported. His defense, who did not contest his arrest warrant, did object the terms of his arrest. Given his active cooperation with investigators and the state of his health Pavlyuchenkov’s lawyers hope that he can be moved to house arrest."

Putin's Army

As the Russian election looms a new twist, Putin's Army, willing to do anything though, as per The Global Post, just what isn't exactly clear:

"One group that has managed to find an enemy is Putin’s Army, a collective that formed on VKontakte, Russia’s version of Facebook, last week. In a video calling on “young, smart and beautiful girls” to join their ranks, the narrator points out “those who would throw dirt on him,” their beloved leader. She then announces a contest calling on young women to “tear something” for Putin (before tearing her own tanktop in two) — but the double meaning of the Russian word she uses (porvat) also implies the threat of vicious revenge.

About 20 members of the group gathered in a central Moscow square on Friday evening to “tear for Putin.” Tottering on heels and wearing t-shirts emblazoned with their hero’s image, they didn’t quite know what to do. First, they strutted down a makeshift catwalk — three times. Then, they decided to march, like soldiers, to show their support of Putin.

“I didn’t think it would be such a popular thing,” Maria Utkina, a 19-year-old Putin’s Army leader, said. “Maybe then I wouldn’t have called it an army.”

“We’re ready to do a lot for Putin — we just have no idea what,” she added.

The group, and a similar one called I Really Do Like Putin that formed on VKontakte this month (they’ve already held a Blueberry Hill sing-along and a bikini-clad car wash), have all the hallmarks of Nashi, the Kremlin-connected youth group. But both Putin’s Army and Nashi deny any connection. The racy Putin’s Army video went viral after appearing on Schitov’s blog but he also denies that his Youth Guard movement is involved.

“Any national leader has a huge number of supporters and this is normal,” Nikita Borovikov, the leader of Nashi, said. “Some of his supporters are young girls, this is also normal — they are citizens like any other person.”