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VOICES FROM M.L.: RUSSIA EATS HER CHILDREN EXILE:
The family of a Russian geologist has paid a terrible price for defending (and marrying) members of unpopular minority groups.
· Price [Open Democracy]
· The Soviet archives exposed [Open Democracy]

In the End, the KGB Won
Garry Kasparov, the world chess champion, is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal. He writes about Russia for the paper's editorial page. According to Common Sense Wonder, Kasparov has a rather worrisome piece on what is going on in my former homeland, Russia:

Russia now is entering an extremely dangerous phase of property redistribution, which is shaking the country's weak economy from top to bottom. The Putin regime's recent, blatant attack on Russia's largest private oil company, Yukos, run by the outspoken oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, illustrates this trend. One of Yukos's major shareholders, Platon Lebedev, has been jailed on charges widely seen in Russia as having less to do with justice than with signaling to all Russian business that no one is safe...
Astonishingly, nearly 50% of the top positions in Russia's governmental structures are occupied by Mr. Putin's former KGB colleagues. This newly emerging Russian ruling elite (no longer content with having squirreled away billions of dollars in foreign banks), sits in ambush, anxiously awaiting the moment when it can cut the throat of U.S. imperialism. Five years ago, then FSB chief Vladimir Putin spoke the truth when he said, "There are no ex-KGB officers!" Will the West ever learn?
So now, not only are they in charge of the government, but they are also able to make a lot more money.
· Russia [WallStreet (subscribersonly)]