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Articles by Yulia Latynina

opinion Yulia Latynina

The Kremlin’s Lack of Control Has Made Me Flee Russia (Op-ed)

After years of working as an independent journalist in Russia, Yulia Latynina has decided to leave.
opinion Yulia Latynina

Are the Donbass Separatists Paid Stooges?

When former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky visited Donetsk a week ago, the masked men holding the regional administration building refused to let him...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Russia's New War Technology in Ukraine

The dismemberment of Ukraine is practically complete. President Vladimir Putin has created his "New Russia" almost without firing a shot.
opinion Yulia Latynina

Ayatollah Putin

Russia is now experiencing exactly the same thing that Iran went through with the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The only difference is that Russia's...
opinion Yulia Latynina

The Rise and Fall of Right Sector

Even while Russia's state-controlled television has been alarming its viewers with stories about "fascists" in the Right Sector
opinion Yulia Latynina

Soon, Buyers Will Use Gas as a Weapon

Three weeks ago, just as Russia was in the early stages of annexing Crimea, I wrote in this space that the most strategic move the West could take...
opinion Yulia Latynina

War in Ukraine Looking More Likely

On the same day that Russia annexed Crimea, the U.S. imposed laughable sanctions against Moscow.
opinion Yulia Latynina

The Ideology of Losers

All of the totalitarian leaders of the 20th century, including Stalin, believed they were superior to the West and would ultimately win out over Western...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Send Heidi Tagliavini to Crimea

Western diplomats must be asking themselves: "How can we influence the Kremlin after Russia's seizure of Crimea? What should we do about President Vladimir...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Why Russia Is Out of This World

German Chancellor Angela Merkel reportedly expressed doubt that President Vladimir Putin was in touch with reality after her recent phone conversation...
opinion Yulia Latynina

The Truth Behind Ekho Moskvy's Troubles

The authorities have waged attacks against two major independent media outlets in recent weeks. First, they staged a 1930s-style public campaign against...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Why Plushenko Called It Quits in Sochi

Yevgeny Plushenko, Russia's only representative in men's singles figure skating at the Olympics, withdrew from the competition due to a spinal injury...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Rain, Rain, Go Away

The authorities have effectively prohibited the Dozhd television channel from broadcasting on cable television.
opinion Yulia Latynina

Yanukovych's Unlimited Stupidity

Former German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer once said, "In view of the fact that God limited the intelligence of man, it seems unfair that He did not also...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Selective Psychoses

Mikhail Kosenko, one of the demonstrators arrested by the authorities for his role in the May 6, 2012 rally protesting President Vladimir Putin's return...
opinion Yulia Latynina

The False Gifts of the Magi

The line of people waiting to see the Gifts of the Magi at Moscow's main cathedral now stretches for kilometers. The faithful stand for hours...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Thanks, Angela Merkel, for Freeing Khodorkovsky

Former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky has German Chancellor Angela Merkel to thank for his newfound freedom
opinion Yulia Latynina

The New State Media Behemoth

President Vladimir Putin has dismantled RIA Novosti and replaced it with the Rossia Sevodnya news agency to improve Russia’s image in the world. The...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Medvedev's Dumb Phone

Russian Technologies head Sergei Chemezov presented Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev with what he called "the first Russian smartphone."
opinion Yulia Latynina

Yanukovych Is No Alpha Male

I find the differences between Ukraine and Russia fascinating
opinion Yulia Latynina

Why Yanukovych Spat in the EU's Soup

President Vladimir Putin can now rejoice. Ukraine will not sign an association agreement with the European Union.
opinion Yulia Latynina

Saving the Economy by Outlawing Dollars

State Duma deputy and Liberal Democratic Party member Mikhail Degtyarev has introduced a bill that would obligate the government to seize Russians'...
opinion Yulia Latynina

The Treads of Russia's Gas Tank

A few days ago, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych made the remarkable statement that, by mining its own shale gas deposits, Ukraine would end its...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Why Russia's Olympic Flame Is a Flub

In a typical Russian scheme, a defense industry factory director owns a private business on site and pockets all of its profits, while the government...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Georgian Voters Duped by Empty Promises

Georgian Dream party candidate Giorgi Margvelashvili won the country's presidential election Sunday.
opinion Yulia Latynina

Moscowstan

Of Moscow's 12 million residents, 2.5 million are migrants, and 18 percent of all births in the capital are the children of those migrants.
opinion Yulia Latynina

A Grudge Against the World

Prominent patriot and State Duma Deputy Andrei Isayev and his aide were kicked off a plane last week for drunken shenanigans.
opinion Yulia Latynina

Rutskoi's Avatar in the Kremlin

It is a commonly held belief that Aug. 21, 1991 and Oct. 4, 1993 — the dates on which the State Committee of the State of Emergency collapsed
opinion Yulia Latynina

Parasitic Police State

The government has published its budget through 2016. It includes an increase in defense spending in 2014 from 15.7 percent of the budget to 17...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Reforms Spell the End for Russian Sciences

No sooner had the Moscow mayoral election ended on Sept. 8 than the State Duma passed a law reforming the Russian Academy of Science, or RAS, in a...
opinion Yulia Latynina

How Yevgeny Roizman Became Mayor

The story of how opposition figure and social activist Yevgeny Roizman beat the authoritarian system and won the mayoral race in Yekaterinburg,...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Finally, a Clean Election

I spent all of Sunday monitoring elections at several polling stations. I was impressed. Fair elections have returned to Moscow. Not a single vote...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Landmark Contest is a Symbol of Russia

The Rossia 10 contest organized by the Russian Geographic Society and created to promote Russia as "a unique country with a rich cultural and natural...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Navalny Is First to Run a U.S.-Style Campaign

Russia is seeing its first real election campaign for a mayoral post in many years. Actually, it is more of a one-man campaign run by opposition leader...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Why Kleptocracies Don't Get Along

The real reason for the trip was that it was apparently Putin's last attempt to convince Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to join the Customs...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Pedophilia in the Presidential Suite

Last week a jury found Vasily Midtsev, the leader of the children's club Young Eagles of the Navy, guilty of pedophilia.
opinion Yulia Latynina

Why Putin Backers Love Bloodhound Gang

During a recent concert in Ukraine, Jared Hasselhoff, the bass guitarist of the U.S rock group Bloodhound Gang, shoved a Russian flag down his pants to...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Putin's Magic Pike

While vacationing in Tuva — although we don't know exactly when he took the vacation — President Vladimir Putin caught a pike weighing 21 kilograms...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Kremlin Sadists Are Torturing Navalny

Many are wondering why Navalny was convicted last Thursday, taken into custody and then released pending his appeal the very next day.
opinion Yulia Latynina

The Snowden Paradox

Edward Snowden, the ideological warrior for freedom of information, is requesting that Russia grant him political asylum from the dictatorial U.S....
opinion Yulia Latynina

Terrorists Without Borders

It is amusing to watch CNN and the BBC and hear all of the talk about “freedom” coming to Egypt, particularly when the Muslim Brotherhood — one of...
opinion Yulia Latynina

The New Iron Curtain

The current upheavals in Egypt might signal the start of a new chapter in world history. A new Iron Curtain is rapidly descending over the Middle East...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Stop Sweeping Terror Under The Carpet

Another suicide bomber blew himself up on Monday. This time, it happened in the arrivals hall of Domodedovo Airport.
opinion Yulia Latynina

Raising Patriots Rather Than Physicists

United Russia is apparently planning to solve the problem of Russia’s “brain drain” once and for all. Thanks to its proposed school reforms, there...
opinion Yulia Latynina

The World Is Liquid

If Russia were only sitting on the sidelines of the global economy while other countries develop, this would be bad in and of itself. But the real problem...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Putin's Fascism Lite

There are two reasons for the outbreak of ultranationalist violence in Russia. The first is Caucasus fascism, which is a serious problem for Russia in...
opinion Yulia Latynina

New Traces of Polonium-210

Two weeks after Alexander Litvinenko's poisoning death in London, Russian special presidential representative Anatoly Safonov dined in Paris with U.S....
opinion Yulia Latynina

KremlinLeaks

While leading publications like the Guardian, El Pais, Der Spiegel and The New York Times were publishing in-depth analytical articles based on documents...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Promises, Promises

It must be nice to be president. Could you imagine if every half hour Ekho Moskvy radio announced instead of the news: “Tomorrow at this time you’ll...
opinion Yulia Latynina

WikiLeaks Is Fighting the Wrong Enemy

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was motivated by one noble principle — that good should prevail over evil. But instead of being used to fight North...
opinion Yulia Latynina

The Real Reason for Moscow’s Traffic Jams

On Sunday, at least 2,000 people turned out for a demonstration in defense of the Tsagovsky forest. This was in Zhukovsky, a city of roughly 100,000 people...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Who Ordered Kashin’s Beating?

Perhaps the one positive aspect of the vicious beating of Kommersant journalist Oleg Kashin on Saturday is that the list of suspects is confined to a small...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Census Doesn't Count

China is a census expert. What about Russia’s recent nationwide census? The main object is for the census takers to record as many taxpayers as possible...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Fires? What Fires?

Any government that is accountable to the people dedicates a substantial amount of time to analyzing and reporting on its actions and mistakes. Visitors...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Supporting Terrorist Values

In the 1930s, left-wingers in the West loved to criticize the “bourgeois, bloody regimes” of Western governments for their false facade of democracy...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Guerilla Warfare Against Cops

A video titled “Primorye Partisan” has been making the rounds on the Internet. It was made by a gang of self-proclaimed guerrillas in the Primorye...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Going From Populist to Puppet

Why did Yury Luzhkov put up such a strong fight? If public office is a politician’s only guarantor of his wealth and business holdings, he will do whatever...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Putin Divides and Rules

It was no coincidence that President Dmitry Medvedev decided to fire Mayor Yury Luzhkov while he was on a state visit to China, a country where “losing...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Turning Drivers Into Slaves

One of the strangest laws that President Dmitry Medvedev has passed since the start of the crisis was the one that dictates that a driver’s blood should...
opinion Yulia Latynina

The Internet Ends TV’s Monopoly

Long before Vladimir Putin established a monopoly on natural resources, the economy and parliament, he established a monopoly on television in the early...
opinion Yulia Latynina

The Coolest Leader in the World

After Prime Minister Vladimir Putin cruised around the Far East in a Lada Kalina for 11 days, political pundits claimed that it was the start of his presidential...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Putin’s Ticking Time Bomb

Moscow’s horrendous daily traffic jams and this summer’s wildfires have something in common: The roots of both of these problems can be found in the...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Bout, Sechin and a Political Firestorm

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has expressed support for Viktor Bout, a Russian citizen and suspected arms dealer who is set to be extradited to the United...
opinion Yulia Latynina

Putin’s Priorities

Disaster response can be evaluated by three measures: whether a system can predict the catastrophe; whether it can react quickly;
opinion Yulia Latynina

Will the Real Caucasus Emir Please Stand Up

Chechen militant Doku Umarov's unexpected resignation and subsequent retraction suggests that he is no more the head of the Caucasus Emirate
opinion Yulia Latynina

Putin Sang Songs While Russia Burned

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has promised to severely punish bureaucrats who did not properly fight the fires
opinion Yulia Latynina

The Mole Who Gave Away Russia’s Spies

The 10 “illegals” have returned home to official fanfare. But at least one important question remains: Who ratted them out?