organization:state duma

Why Belarus Is About To Get Interesting
▻http://www.rferl.org/content/why-belarius-is-about-to-get-interesting/27234694.html

According to Arseniy Sivitsky and Yury Tsarik of the Belarusian Center for Strategic and Foreign Policy Research, Moscow is laying the groundwork to destabilize Belarus in the aftermath of the October 11 election — creating the "illusion of a Maidan," so Russian forces could then enter the country to restore order. 

And the information campaign appears to have already begun.

Aleksey Pushkov, chairman of the State Duma’s Foreign Relations Committee, said recently that the West was planning a colored revolution in Belarus to oust Lukashenka.

“The pro-Kremlin media are actively preparing public opinion in Russia and neighboring countries for war, destabilization, coups, and colored revolutions,” the U.S.-based Russian journalist Kseniya Kirillova wrote recently. “And as a result, there will be a need to introduce forces into these countries under the pretext of restoring the constitutional order.”

#Biélorussie, changements à venir ?

Azerbaijan’s first family of dictators lives lavishly in suburbs of Moscow
▻http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/azerbaijans-first-family-of-dictators-lives-lavishly-in-suburbs-of-moscow-

Seven kilometers west of Moscow along the Rublyevo-Uspenskoye Highway, a three-meter-high green metal fence cuts through the cool pine forest. Behind the fence lies Mayendorf Gardens, a subdivision in the exclusive and secretive Rublevka community that is home to Forbes millionaires, State Duma deputies, and high-ranking public officials.

One of the homeowners is Leyla Aliyeva, the elder daughter of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who is listed in various records as either 30 or 31 years old. Experts told the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project her property is probably worth tens of millions of given that the median value of current houses for sale in the settlement is $37 million.

OCCRP has been tracking the first family’s wealth and the dacha is just one of the many luxury mansions the Aliyevs own around the world despite Ilham Aliyev having only served as a public servant during most of his life.

http://www.kyivpost.com/media/images/2015/08/13/4073b16cd4ef4516ab9c7a0c/03_992ede1f8f32f7d9af6c511a2d3cdfaf.jpg

Crimea and Sochi See Future as Gambling Centers | Business | The Moscow Times
▻http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/crimea-and-sochi-see-future-as-gambling-centers/503018.html

The State Duma passed a new law Friday bringing Crimea and, in a surprise move, post-Olympic resort town Sochi into the select group of Russian regions and territories that are allowed to establish gambling zones.
“The creation of a gambling zone in the Republic of Crimea will help attract additional investment in the region, create new jobs and replenish the revenue base of the regional budget,” said Anatoly Karpov, first deputy chairman of the Duma’s Economic Policy, Innovation Development and Entrepreneurship Committee, ITAR-Tass reported.
The Russian government essentially outlawed gambling in 2009, restricting it to four designated zones throughout Russia, but only one, the Azov-City gambling complex on the border of the Krasnodar and Rostov regions, has taken brought its special privilege to fruition. Similar zones in the Kaliningrad region, Primorye region and the republic of Altai are still under construction five years on.
In a surprise move, legislators inserted a clause into the bill during its second reading that allows

Russia Moves to Make Failure to Declare Dual Citizenship a Crime - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2014/05/20/world/europe/20reuters-russia-bill-dualcitizens.html

Parliament approved legislation on Tuesday requiring Russians to declare dual citizenship or face criminal prosecution after President Vladimir Putin endorsed the measure as part of a more nationalist course taken since his annexation of Crimea.
(…)
The bill was supported by 429 deputies in the 450-seat State Duma lower house, with only three votes against. With the Kremlin’s backing, it is virtually guaranteed passage in a third reading in the State Duma and a vote in the upper house.

The law includes an exemption for Russians with dual citizenship who live abroad and for residents of Crimea, where Russia is busily issuing passports.

Russia to create cyber-warfare units - English pravda.ru
▻http://english.pravda.ru/russia/politics/29-08-2013/125531-cyber_warfare-0

“National interests on the Internet need to be protected, even if through vegetarian methods,” said the Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technology and Communications Alexei Mitrofanov. He talked about these methods in an interview with the head of the first RuNet online media, head of the media holding Pravda.Ru, Vadim Gorshenin.

#russie #syrie #cyberguerre #armée

Russian P.M. Medvedev ‘Glad’ Romney Lost

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said he is glad the U.S. presidential election had not been won by “someone who considers Russia enemy number one,” according to the official Russian news agency — a clear reference to Mitt Romney.

Another top official expressed the same sentiment. Alexey Pushkov, chairman of the State Duma’s powerful international affairs committee, said on his Twitter account that it was good the White House would not be occupied by someone who regards Russia as “the enemy.”

Obama’s victory was “better for the outside world,” he said.

Medvedev and Pushkov were alluding to comments first made by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney last March, when he called Russia “our number one geopolitical foe.”

Romney at the time was criticizing Obama for suggesting to Medvedev that he would be willing to make concessions to Russia on missile defense in Europe during a second term in the White House.

“This is my last election,” Obama told the Russian. “After my election I have more flexibility.”

The day after Obama’s re-election, Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated him on his win, invited Obama to visit Russia next year, and “expressed his hopes for continued constructive work together,” the Kremlin said in a statement.

The following day, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin told an international conference in Moscow: “We hope that President Obama after his re-election will be more flexible on the issue of taking into account the opinions of Russia and others regarding a future configuration of NATO’s missile defense.”

Writing on his Facebook page in October, Garry Kasparov, former world chess champion and leader of an anti-Putin movement, said Obama’s so-called “reset” of relations with Moscow “has been a disaster, giving Putin everything he wants despite his support of the Iranian nuclear program, arming [President Hugo] Chavez in Venezuela, protecting murderous [President Bashar] Assad in Syria, and increasing crackdowns here in Russia.

“Romney was criticized for calling Russia the U.S.’s top geopolitical adversary, but he was correct – although he should have specified it is Putin, and not the Russian people, who oppose peace and cooperation with the West.”