Russia

Loretta Marie Perera reports from Moscow. It was a cold day in Moscow on 8 March, 2021. A far cry from spring, the temperature hovered somewhere between minus 5 and 15, while snow intermittently fell and wind kept snowfall from the night before floating in every which way. It was Women’s Day, a public holiday in Russia, and a day of celebrating women – and one typically of overpriced bouquets, marketing promotion, and special menus. But for feminists and activists around Russia, this day has never been about roses and fancy dinners. Rather, it is a day to stand in solidarity, to create...

Loretta Marie Perera reports from Moscow. The first two months of 2021 in Russia have been outlined by protest, police brutality, arrests, a fight for justice, and more. Centred around the return, arrest, and imprisonment of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, massive country-wide protests transformed the streets of Russia, both in central Moscow and far beyond. On 23 and 31 January, and following Navalny’s sentencing on 2 February, protestors took to the streets by the thousands. As the protests grew, so did police presence, and along with it violence on the streets that was both live-streamed...

On the night of 2 February, the most central parts of Moscow – that is to say, the fanciest, most iconic, and at other times, the most touristy – were taken over in a culmination of ultraviolence brought to the streets by droves of armed men.

Loretta Marie Perera reports from Moscow. An aversion to Russia’s leading opposition politician, Alexei Navalny, is a sentiment shared by many of the feminists, socialists, leftists, and anti-capitalists who joined tens of thousands in protests around Russia starting on Saturday, January 23. “I disagree with many things about Navalny’s politics: his attitude to migrants, feminism, LGBT,” said Daria, 33, who protested in St. Petersburg. But for many, Daria included, there is a bigger enemy to reckon with. “I believe that it is impossible and humiliating to continue to tolerate the attitude of...

“Putin is the richest man in the world by a multiple. Imagine controlling 25 per cent of the wealth of a country? Wouldn’t that be fucking amazing?” Donald Trump It is not impossible that Trump’s departure from the White House could soon be followed by his venal soul-mate Vladimir Putin exiting the Kremlin. Despite him making himself President for life through one of the most crooked referendums of modern times, Russian people outside of his mafia state apparatus have had enough of corruption and theft from the nation’s coffers. Putin attempted last year to add anti-corruption activist Navalny...

On 26 October the Morning Star published an obituary-cum-eulogy on “Ghost Battalion” commander Aleksey Markov. The Ghost Brigade (since 2015: Ghost Battalion) was one of a myriad of “local” military units created in 2014 as a cover for Russian political and military intervention into eastern Ukraine after the overthrow of Ukrainian President Yanukovych. TheMorning Star has long portrayed the Ghost Brigade as a latter-day version of the International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War. But this is contradicted by Markov’s own description of the Brigade’s creation: “We formed the Ghost Brigade...

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, opposition candidate in Belarus’s rigged 9 August election, declared on Telegram on 13 October: “The regime has 13 days to fulfill three main requirements: 1. Lukashenko must leave. 2. Street violence must stop completely. 3. All political prisoners must be released. If our demands are not met by 25 October, the whole country will peacefully take to the streets with the People’s Ultimatum.” Evidently the opposition assesses that it is strong enough at least to have a chance of this “ultimatum” having at least some force. Sunday 11 October saw street protests again...

The great revolutionary Leon Trotsky was assassinated on 21 August 1940 by an agent of the Stalinist regime. Almost to the day, 80 years later came an attempted assassination of Alexei Navalny, a leading anti corruption activist and critic of Putin. The intended method of dispatch these days is not an ice pick or a gun, but some form of poison. The intention of the exercise remains the same though - elimination of all opposition to a corrupt police-state regime. Although property relation have undergone change since the fall of the USSR thirty years ago and the country purports to be some form...

For a long time, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been "threatening" to open Turkey’s western borders, and allow the millions of refugees to travel to Europe. Now he is upping the threats and raising the stakes. His aim is not to get better conditions for the refugees. It is to force Europe into greater support of Turkey. Yet, with the renewed attacks on migrants, it is the responsibility of socialists all across Europe to challenge the racist anti-immigration laws being put forward by our governments. In Britain the losses have far outnumbered the victories as Home Secretary Priti...

Conditions are bad for the Crimean Tatar community in Crimea, under Russian rule since Putin annexed Crimea in 2014. No Crimean Tatar organisations are able to operate. The sixteen Crimean Tatar language schools have all been closed. The Crimean Tatar library has been shut down. The Crimean Tatar university (Tavriva) has had to move to Kiev. The Crimean Tatar TV channel has been taken over by the Russian authorities. Of the three Crimean Tatar newspapers, two have been shut down, and one is now run by the Russian authorities. There have been lots of kidnappings and disappearances of activists...