Carnegie Moscow Center
As John McCain formally accepts his nomination for president, Russian coverage of the event and the campaign in general has been distanced and sometimes condescending. Instead, the Russian media has mainly been focused on the events in Georgia.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn was a premodern giant who defied the limits of human ability and the forces of nature. His world was that of ethical absolutes, unshakable values, spiritual discipline and self-sacrificial commitment.
Interest in the dark side of Soviet history is modest now compared with the nationwide yearning in the late 1980s for the truth about the Soviet regime's crimes. But it may be enough to make the Kremlin want to preempt or control such interest.
During Vladimir Putin's presidency, tight control of the mass media evolved as one of the Russian leadership's key political resources. It will be equally indispensable to newly inaugurated President Dmitry Medvedev.
The next Russian administration, with Dmitry Medvedev as president and Vladimir Putin remaining at the helm as prime minister, may evolve into something different from Putin's current rule. But the expectations of liberalization that Medvedev's rhetoric and non-KGB background might have raised in some circles are wishful thinking.
Kosovo has evolved as an issue of consensus among the Russian leadership as well as the public. The Russian people – from nationalist hawks to liberal Westernizers – all agree: Kosovo independence is not a good idea.
The stepped-up harassment of the British Council in recent days signals a new low in Russia's post-Cold-War relations with the West and a further slide toward Soviet-style isolationism.
Using the disguise of parliamentary elections as a way to have his authority reconfirmed should help Putin get around the requirement that he step down in 2008 and should allow him to remain in charge -- in whatever capacity he would carve out for himself -- even after his second presidential term ends. This transformation of Duma elections into a referendum may explain why the Kremlin is behaving with such nervousness about a vote it is sure to win and why it is raising the specter of new enemies facing Russia.
With Vladimir Putin's announcement this week that he would head the pro-Kremlin United Russia party in December's parliamentary elections, Russia's new power configuration began to take shape. Ultimately, it will mean the extension of Putin's authority and a triumph of manipulative politics. But as they have demonstrated, the Russian people won't mind.
This month marks 70 years since the drastic surge of Stalin's terror: In 1937 the Kremlin butcher scrapped even the faintest appearance of court procedures. The infamous "troika trials" -- a system of justice by rubber-stamped death sentences -- killed more than 436,000 in one year. The anniversary observances were intended to honor the victims. But the ceremony held earlier this month at Butovo, the site of mass killings on the outskirts of Moscow, revealed the government's desire to keep the public's mind off reflections about terror and its perpetrators.