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Russia introduced a new law broadening the definition of treason on Wednesday, alarming opponents who say Vladimir Putin will use it to silence his critics and that almost anyone in contact with foreigners will be at risk. The legislation allows Russians representing international organizations to be charged with treason, as well as those working for foreign states and bodies, and expands the range of actions that can be considered treasonous.

Russia skewers US election as undemocratic, ‘the worst in the world’By Julian Pecquet - 11/04/12 06:00 AM ET The Russian government is lambasting the U.S. presidential race as an undemocratic spectacle amid growing concerns about the country’s own commitment to free and fair elections. The Foreign Ministry this week accused America of hypocrisy following reports that some U.S. states would turn away international election monitors at the polls. The Kremlin-funded Russia Today television station, meanwhile, is serving up a steady stream of outraged U.S. election coverage, reporting on topics such as the lack of polling places in Indian country and...

Russia’s departure from quasi-democracy is beyond doubt, but it drifts rather than marches toward a debilitated and corrupt authoritarianism as Vladimir Putin’s third presidency settles into a tedious pattern. The discourse of “modernization” has been discarded and most of Dmitry Medvedev’s “innovations” have been cancelled, but Putin’s meeting with the activists of Popular Front, which was supposed to keep his support base mobilized, was distinguished only by a complete absence of a meaningful agenda (Kommersant, October 19). Alienated liberals keep arguing that Putin has made a conscious decision to progress to a mature autocracy and destroy the fledgling opposition (Vedomosti,...

NOVO-OGARYOVO, Russia, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Russia needs a "leap forward" to rejuvenate its sprawling defence industry, President Vladimir Putin said on Friday, harkening back to the ambitious industrialisation carried out by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in the runup to World War Two. "We should carry out the same powerful, all-embracing leap forward in modernisation of the defence industry as the one carried out in the 1930s," Putin told his Security Council, without mentioning Stalin by name. Stalin, who ruled the Soviet empire with an iron fist for 27 years, is blamed for the death of about six million people...

Vlad the impaler: Putin may have had affair with ex-spy ChapmanBy ANDY SOLTIS Last Updated: 7:14 AM, April 24, 2012 Vladimir Putin may have had an affair with sexy former spy Anna Chapman — which might have knocked the Russian president’s wife of 29 years out of the spotlight, Kremlin watchers say. Putin, 59, is an ever-present figure in the Russian media but has been shown just twice with his 54-year-old wife, Lyudmila, in the last two years. Ex-Manhattanite Chapman, 30, who was booted to Moscow in a 2010 spy swap, soon emerged as a key player...

As Moscow gears up to celebrate its victory in World War II, 67 years ago Wednesday, the shadow of political conflict shrouds the capital as hundreds of arrests cloud Victory Day festivities. Police said over 200 arrests were made Tuesday and overnight Wednesday on the eve of the anniversary, including repeat detentions for Left-Front leader Sergei Udaltsov and anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny, who was arrested twice in a single evening, Interfax reported. Socialite Kseniya Sobchack and State Duma Deputy Dmitry Gudkov were also among those arrested during protests against President Vladimir Putin's inauguration, though they were later released. Sobchak called...

Legislator Tubagus Hasanuddin raised questions on Friday about a recent Defense Ministry purchase of six Russian fighter jets, claiming the deal might have been unduly marked up by $50 million. Tubagus, deputy chairman of House of Representatives Commission I overseeing defense and foreign affairs, pointed out the high price of the planes compared to previous purchases of the same aircraft. Planes already acquired by Indonesia, he said, only cost $55 million each. Indonesia bought six of the Sukhoi jets from Russia in 2007 for $355 million. There was also a discrepancy with the published list price, he added. The latest...

Vladimir Putin praised Cold War-era scientists on Thursday for stealing U.S. nuclear secrets so that United States would not be the world's sole atomic power, in comments reflecting his vision of Russia as a counterweight to U.S. power. Spies with suitcases full of data helped the Soviet Union build its atomic bomb, he told military commanders. "You know, when the States already had nuclear weapons and the Soviet Union was only building them, we got a significant amount of information through Soviet foreign intelligence channels," Putin said, according to state-run Itar-Tass. "The were carrying the information away not on microfilm...

Russia needs to launch a major military buildup to prepare for life in a dangerous world where international law is breaking down, the West feels free to intervene in sovereign countries, and rivals could invade Russia to seize its rich trove of natural resources, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has warned. In his fifth programmatic article detailing what he will do if he wins a new six-year presidential term in elections that are now less than two weeks off, Mr. Putin pledged, among other things, the biggest rearmament program in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Over the next...

MOSCOW — Russia's Vladimir Putin implicated Washington on Thursday in the killing of Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi and launched a tirade against Senator John McCain in an extraordinary attack on US policies. The Russian premier used his annual televised phone-in to unleash the type of no-holds-barred attack that characterised his 2000-2008 term as president and threatens to shadow his expected return to the Kremlin in March polls. Putin turned stone-faced when asked about a tweet from McCain -- one of Washington's fiercest critics of Putin -- warning Russia it faced an "Arab spring" revolt over the disputed December 4 parliamentary...

MOSCOW – Tens of thousands of people held the largest anti-government protests that post-Soviet Russia has ever seen on Saturday to criticize electoral fraud and demand an end to Vladimir Putin's rule. Police showed surprising restraint and state-controlled TV gave the nationwide demonstrations unexpected airtime, but there is no indication the opposition is strong enough to push for real change from the prime minister or his ruling party. Nonetheless, the prime minister seems to be in a weaker position than he was a week ago, before Russians voted in parliamentary elections. His United Party lost a substantial share of its...

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Moscow today, in the largest of more than 70 protests across Russia, to voice their anger at alleged election fraud and to demand that the results of the parliamentary elections be cancelled, a new election be held, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin resign. Opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, one of the organizers of the rally, explained the protesters’ demands to ABC News. “Our demand is to cancel these criminal elections, because Putin stole about 13 million votes. Secondly, to fire Mr. [Vladimir] Churov, who is responsible for the election and to...

Thousands gather for Moscow protest Tens of thousands of Russians turned out in central Moscow and across the country Saturday to protest what they believe were rigged parliamentary elections. United Russia, the party of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, suffered big losses in the election, but retained its parliamentary majority. On Saturday, protesters chanted "Putin out," according to a correspondent from state-run RIA Novosti news agency. Between 20,000 and 25,000 protesters had gathered in the capital, Moscow, Ria Novosti said Saturday, citing police. There have been no reports of unrest and security has been tight. Vladimir Ryzhkov, co-chairman of the Party...

Tens of thousands of security force personnel have been deployed in Moscow ahead of the rally Moscow is braced for what the opposition claims will be the biggest demonstration in Russia for 20 years. Tens of thousands are expected to gather in a square south of the Kremlin, in the latest show of anger over disputed parliamentary polls. Smaller rallies are due to take place in cities across the country. The demonstrators say Sunday's elections - which gave Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's ruling United Russia party a small lead - were falsified. Hundreds of people have been arrested by the...

<p>Supporters of Russian communist party hold a rally in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. Protests against the recent election results are growing across Russia.</p> <p>Vladimir Putin is set to face the biggest show of opposition yet to his strongman rule with tens of thousands of Russians promising to take to the streets on Saturday in a popular wave of discontent unseen since he came to power 12 years ago.</p>

Thousands of spectators at a sporting event booed and jeered Vladimir Putin in an unprecedented demonstration of hostility. The Russian prime minister appeared stunned by the reaction of the crowd in Moscow’s Olympic stadium, where he presented a prize to the winner of an ‘ultimate fighting’ bout. Reports of the incident on state-controlled TV gave a different impression. All catcalling was edited out and the only footage shown was of 59-year-old Putin being cheered when he hailed the Russian victor of the bloody contest – a mixture of boxing, wrestling and kick boxing. But the attempt at censorship backfired thanks...

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir, already in campaign mode for a third term as president, said fraudsters who siphon off state money should have their faces smashed. … "The practitioners of kickbacks and graft should not only get a rap on the knuckles, they should have their faces smashed," Putin told an audience of Russian financial policemen. Anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International rates Russia as the world's most corrupt major economy, ranking it 154th out of 178 nations in its corruption perceptions index last year, on a par with Cambodia, Kenya and Laos. …

excerpt- His United Russia party also approved his proposal that the current president Dmitry Medvedev take over his Putin's role as prime minister.

A group of 14 acclaimed Russian intellectuals, including human rights activists, artists, film directors, writers and aides of the late President Boris Yeltsin have published an open statement condemning the present regime for “completely destroying the institution of democratic elections in Russia.” Election results are shamelessly falsified by the authorities, while opposition parties and activists are “unconstitutionally” denied registration to run in elections under cooked up pretexts. As a result, subjects of the Russian state are disfranchised from the political system rendering it illegitimate. The statement describes as “vicious” the so called “vertical of power”—a system of personalized authoritarian rule...

RUSSIAN president Vladimir Putin has come up with a novel - and old-fashioned - solution to corrupt officials: chop off their hands. "It would be good to cut off the hand, as they used to in the Middle Ages," Putin was quoted as saying by Itar-Tass during a meeting with parliamentary leaders. The radical idea followed a complaint at the meeting by Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov that "just to build 100 apartments you have to run around for 24 hours looking for permits and greasing hands". Putin, who says corruption is Russia's most serious problem, answered, "all you'd have...