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Articles by Nikolai Petrov

opinion Nikolai Petrov

As Anger at Ruling Regime Boils Over, Putin Strikes Hard Against Dissent

Like a stone thrown into a stagnant swamp, Navalny’s return reactivated Russia’s political life.
opinion Nikolai Petrov

Putin’s Undying Support for Autocracy

Polls show that the average Russian is also unwilling to let go of Alexander Lukashenko.
opinion Ben Noble and Nikolai Petrov

Russian Power Agencies in the Time of Pandemic

On Jan. 20, 2020, Yury Chaika stepped down as Prosecutor General — a post he had held since 2006. His replacement, Ivan Krasnov, moved from being...
opinion Nikolai Petrov

The Ulyukayev Case: What is the Ruling Elite so Afraid Of?

Almost two weeks have passed since the authorities detained and dismissed former Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev on charges of exacting...
opinion Nikolai Petrov

Peering Into the Crystal Ball: Russia After the Elections

The election results have significantly changed the political balance not only in the regions, where new, strong, and relatively independent political...

Russian State Duma Election Campaign Kicks Off (Op-Ed)

The 2016 election campaign is officially, and finally underway. These are crucial elections. They end one political era and begin another — both in form...
opinion Nikolai Petrov

How Putin Changed the Balance of Power Among Russia's Elite (Op-Ed)

As is often the case in Russia, the creation of the National Guard was long anticipated, and therefore, caught everyone by surprise.

Russia's Ruling Regime Must Modernize or Face Collapse

In 2016 the Russian authorities will have to shift their focus away from shaping the world order and toward putting their own house in order. Otherwise...

Watch Out for the Post-Olympics Syndrome

The question is not whether the Kremlin will start a crackdown on the opposition, now that Russia is out of the international spotlight following...

Davos and Russia's Regions

Recent events in Ukraine and the differences between its east and west force us to take a new look at the role regions play in the process of political...

Who Profits From Terrorism?

The end of the year was marred by a series of high-profile terrorist attacks both within the North Caucasus and close to its borders. First, a car...

The Merging Mania Has Reached the Courts

Arguably the most important event taking place within President Vladimir Putin's regime today is the merging of the Supreme Court with the Supreme...

Mayors Beware

A funny message has been circulating on Russian social media networks. If you do a search using the words "mayors arrested," you will get multiple...

The Pioneering Far East

Russia has taken a more confrontational approach toward Europe and is attempting to turn instead toward Asia. A particularly revealing evidence of this...

Open Season on Governors

No sooner had one election ended than the Kremlin began preparing for new elections to be held one year from now. Former Yamal-Nenets autonomous district...

Medvedev's Usual Patter in Sochi

The 12th Sochi International Investment Forum brought together numerous senior officials and dozens of regional governors.

Authorities Use Fair Means in Rigged Elections

Elections will definitely reappear in Russia at some point, but it is still too early to say it has already happened. The recent elections in Moscow and...

Elections Show the End of One-Party System

The Kremlin is clearly worried, and not just about the mayoral race in Moscow. The anxiety can be seen in the fact that President Vladimir Putin skipped...

Migration Service Boosts Russia's Police State

On Aug. 1, а tent camp was set up in Moscow for several hundred Vietnamese and Tajik illegal migrants detained in raids.

Navalny as an Icebreaker

After a Kirov court sentenced opposition leader Alexei Navalny to five years in prison on July 18, an unauthorized rally of about 10,000 Navalny...

Failed North Caucasus Policy

Events of the last few months have created the strong impression that something serious is brewing in the North Caucasus.

Putin's Economic Reshuffle Won't Help

The recent reshuffle among the government's top economics officials was intended to stimulate economic growth and push the country out of its current...

Putin on the Front Burner

Two full years after it was first created, the All-Russia People's Front gained official status only last week under the new name of the People's Front...

The Fall of Dagestan's Political Legend

Moscow maintains a delicate balance of power among ethnic clans in Dagestan by essentially buying their loyalty in return for relative calm.

United Russia Primed for Primaries

United Russia started primaries last week in most of the regions that will hold elections on Sept. 8.

Putin's Well-Scripted Chat With the People

President Vladimir Putin's recent televised call-in show forced the country to recall the almost forgotten entertainment genre in which the national...

How Did Putin Conjure Up $1Bln for NGOs?

During President Vladimir Putin's visit to Germany last week, he gave a television interview in which he stated that 654 nongovernmental organizations...

Why the Kremlin Is Targeting NGOs

The authorities have initiated an unprecedented campaign against nongovernmental organizations, conducting burdensome inspections of their offices in Moscow...

Why Putin Should Dissolve the Duma

The latest fashion for Russian officials is to cite political roots stretching as far back as possible.

Switching Governors in Midstream

The Kremlin continued its campaign of replacing regional heads in the run-up to gubernatorial elections in September with the dismissal of former...

Putin Continues to Feed the Siloviki

According to tradition, Russia's law enforcement officials started off the year by summing up the previous 12 months and making plans for the coming...

The Siloviki's Front Man in Dagestan

One year before the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and 12 months before the term of former Dagestani leader Magomedsalam Magomedov was to expire,...

More Protests in 2013

The first weeks of 2013 have already shown that relations between Russian authorities and society will be no better this year than they were in 2012...

Putin and the Regions

Although President Vladimir Putin's state-of-the-nation address last week was largely an amalgamation of vague promises devoid of strategic vision,...
opinion Nikolai Petrov

Putin's Undemocratic Federation Council

Even when the Kremlin introduces a modest legislative initiative geared toward political reform, it often becomes ­watered-down and ineffective by the...
opinion Nikolai Petrov

Kremlin Filters Will Change in Next Elections

The gubernatorial elections held last month in five regions were important primarily as a test run of the Kremlin's new system of "filtering" the selection...

Putin's Political Volcano

The Kremlin had hoped that after the March presidential election gave President Vladimir Putin a decisive victory, the protest movement would die down...

Kremlin Is the Big Loser in Regional Elections

All eyes focused on the Oct. 14 regional elections to see whether the Kremlin would modernize the political system after December's State Duma vote...

Why the Kremlin Is Still Afraid of Elections

Regional elections, which will be held in less than two weeks, will be the first since the State Duma elections last December that sparked the mass...

Kremlin Fanning Ethnic And Religious Tensions

Last week's murder of a respected spiritual leader in Dagestan, a recent terrorist attack in Kazan and overall tensions in Muslim-dominated regions...

Putin's Fake Anti-Corruption Drive

The Kremlin surprised many with its recent legislative initiative that would prohibit officials from owning property or opening bank accounts abroad...

Gap Between Moscow and Regions Widens

The same authorities who fearfully responded to the anti-government protests in December by proposing a range of political reforms are now carrying...

Don't Expect an October Revolution

With the recent resignation of Ryazan Governor Oleg Kovalyov, five regions — Amur, Belgorod, Bryansk, Novgorod and Ryazan — are now set to hold...

Senator Reform Just Plain Bad

As part of the political reforms that the Kremlin announced in December, a new bill has been introduced that would change the way the Federation...

Expect Fewer Bland Apparatchiks

A new law on gubernatorial elections came into effect on June 1, but there will be only a few gubernatorial elections during the next two years...

Why I'm Optimistic About Putin's 4th Term

Even as President Vladimir Putin unveiled a new Cabinet on Monday, my hopes had already been all but shattered that we would see a slightly more liberal...

The Kremlin's Filter Facade

According to the Kremlin, even the truncated watered-down reforms that President Dmitry Medvedev announced after mass protests broke out in December...

Gubernatorial Election Genie Out of the Bottle

Even the most truncated of President Dmitry Medvedev's recent political reforms have begun to falter. Legislation loosening the procedure for registering...

Putin Won't Liberalize Anything

Politics in Russia are like the weather in that they are both full of wild fluctuations. The country is now in a political light frost, but that...

Why Putin Will Face More Protests

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's victory in Sunday's election means he will return to the Kremlin once again, albeit in far less triumphant fashion than...

The Devil in the Election Bill Details

The Kremlin often implements policies that it never makes public, and this is the reason many of its actions seem pointless or absurd.

Why Electoral Fraud Is the Better of 2 Evils

Putin can't afford a second round. He needs to show that he is still the true national leader. Faced with the choice of having to falsify a certain percentage...

Losing Confidence in the Direct Election Bill

The Kremlin is trying to present President Dmitry Medvedev's new bill as a way of bringing back direct gubernatorial elections, but it is more of a...

Once an Alpha Dog, Always an Alpha Dog

If anyone in the Kremlin is hoping that the protesters would disband and give up the struggle after the long New Year's holiday, they will probably...

Putin Trying to 'Filter' His Way to Re-Election

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin held his annual televised call-in show 1 1/2 weeks after the State Duma elections and just five days after the nationwide...

An Exciting End to a Dull Election

he State Duma elections were unusually interesting, despite a campaign lacking in vigor and internal intrigues that went practically unnoticed by the...

Medvedev as Cheerleader-in-Chief

It would be wrong to conclude that President Dmitry Medvedev can expect to have the prime minister spot simply handed to him on a silver platter as...

Dumping Dead Weight And Adding Medvedev

President Dmitry Medvedev was very active last week. But he was not very convincing in his new role as the outgoing president and the top gun on United...

Putin Is Calling Us to Never-Never Land

Russian politics have become even more primitive of late, and politicians' strident speeches sound like a continuation of the jingoistic, saccharine...

Medvedev Will Be Fall Guy as Prime Minister

We now know that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev will switch places in March. But the idea that it makes no difference who...

First the Reshuffle, Then the Kremlin Vote

In a normal democracy, a reshuffling of personnel occurs only after a new administration is voted into office. But in Russia's "managed democracy...

The Poltavchenko Play

The political logic behind the decision to replace St. Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko with Georgy Poltavchenko is not clear. If United Russia...

Primaries First Step to Political Modernization

The United Russia primaries held across the country for the last few weeks have almost ended, but, despite what skeptics say, the primaries are not...

Putin Will Need a Long Shower After the Vote

Although we are only at the early stages of December's State Duma elections, there are already three signals that give us a clear idea of how the vote...

United Russia's Primaries

Russia's primaries in the regions will start this week, with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's All-Russia People's Front dominating the political landscape...

Matviyenko, Don't Pack Your Bags Just Yet

In the run-up to the elections, we are seeing the beginning of a shakeup in top political positions. The Kremlin started with Valentina Matviyenko...

Not Riding Tandem

Some commentators were quick to claim that President Dmitry Medvedev's speech Friday at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum was his most...

Fresh Faces for United Russia

The All-Russia People's Front, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's political brainchild that he unveiled a month ago in Volgograd, is now taking its first...

No Place Left for Medvedev

Instead of campaigning, President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin have stepped up their political maneuvering in the run-up to State...

Putin the Populist President

During his address to the State Duma last week, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin drew a rosy picture of the future that he imagines the people want to see...

Medvedev Up, Putin Down

President Dmitry Medvedev effectively kicked off his re-election campaign by deepening a rift within the ruling tandem. In a single stroke, he not...

A Way Out of the Crisis

The flood of projections and plans for Russia through 2020 and beyond indicates that the country is entering a new political era. Of the five scenarios...

Putin's Electoral Ace in the Hole

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is also the head of United Russia, took a more active role in Sunday's elections than he's played in any since...

A Recipe for Success in the North Caucasus

Recent headlines have been filled with disturbing news from the North Caucasus: the killing of tourists and a series of terrorist attacks in Kabardino-Balkaria...

An Imitation Government

President Dmitry Medvedev's recent whirlwind of activity illustrates how in Russia, what should be a super-powerful or at least a powerful state has...

Airport Bombing Serves as Wake-Up Call

Last week’s horrifying terrorist attack at Domodedovo Airport that killed 35 people should serve as a wake-up call to the public. The suicide bombing...

United Russia Facing a Crisis Of Confidence

According to a recent Levada Center survey, 45 percent of voters continue to support United Russia. But the current poll does not account for two serious...

Time Is Not on the Kremlin's Side

When President Dmitry Medvedev called for a reduction in the number of time zones in Russia during his state-of-the-nation address a year ago, I took it...

A Triumph of Aimlessness

President Dmitry Medvedev’s recent state-of-the-nation address could be held up as an exceptional illustration of his recent musings on how Russia’s...

Marching Forward or Falling Back?

President Dmitry Medvedev gave a video address last week and, according to tradition, sounded a liberal note in advance of his annual state-of-the-nation...

Moscow’s Bear From the Provinces

Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has been on the job for three weeks now, but it remains unclear whether he is an effective manager.
Although Sobyanin has considerable...

A New Strategy for United Russia

The Oct. 10 regional elections were a test- run prior to preparations for State Duma and presidential elections in 2011 and 2012. The Kremlin took an anti-modernization...

All Power to the Regions

Although most people focused on the drama, intrigue and political significance of Mayor Yury Luzhkov’s firing, there were still a few who noticed that...

The End of a Political Era

The story of Yury Luzhkov’s ouster is extremely interesting and instructive, and it reveals a great deal about the structure of the current political...

The End Is Near for Luzhkov

The biggest news story by far last week was the scandal surrounding Mayor Yury Luzhkov. After NTV aired its “Delo v Kepke” program on Sept. 10, which...

Military Caps Replaced by Plain Old Hats

Kremlin decision to appoint Novosibirsk Governor Viktor Tolokonsky as its envoy to the Siberian Federal District on Thursday raises two key questions:...

A Messy Playing Field for United Russia

Russia can expect plenty of political turbulence this fall. The regional elections in October are only a month away, and the outcome will be crucial for...

Putin’s Perestroika Experiment in Kaliningrad

In ousting Georgy Boos as Kaliningrad governor and replacing him with a local politician, Moscow took the safe route. Faced with repeated mass demonstrations...

Living From Fire to Fire

As long as the country’s management structure remains so top-heavy and “vertical,” there will be no improvement in the country’s ability to manage...

A Modern Russia of Dust and Dead Flies

For some reason, most commentators have written about the government’s new web site, ModernRussia, as though its main focus was modernization. In reality...