Viktor Kogan-Yasny on Andrei Sakharov: “I hope that young people today will respect Sakharov, and not just themselves.”

21 May 2021 Speech at a Yabloko event organised in honour of Andrei Sakharov, marking his centenary by Viktor Kogan-Yasny I apologise if this is a bit of an excursion…

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Remember the Date: On 13 February 1974 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was deported from the Soviet Union

Aleksandr Solzhentisyn and Heinrich Boell outside Boell's house. Photo by Bert Verhoeff (Wikipedia) On 13 February 1974 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was deported from the Soviet Union to West Germany, where he initially…

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Boris Akunin: The authorities should be more grown up than the people

27 January 2021 By Boris Akunin, author Source: Moscow Helsinki Group [original source: Эхо Москвы] Sometimes you want to say simple, trivial things.  Commentators will no doubt say how naive I…

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Dmitry Bykov: To get Navalny out of the jaws of this system

19 January 2021 by Dmitry Bykov, writer, poet and journalist Source: Moscow Helsinki Group [original source: Эхо Москвы] Of course, I went to meet Navalny at Vnukovo, and the main feeling…

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Dmitry Bykov on why the National Guard recently purchased special equipment costing 2bn roubles

12 January 2021 By Dmitry Bykov, writer, poet, journalist: Source: Moscow Helsinki Group [originalsource: ЭхоМосквы] On why the Russian National Guard recently purchased special equipment for two billion rubles. What actually…

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Viktor Kogan-Yasny: “We were mistaken when we thought that the Communist utopia had been defeated by the desire for development and responsibility, that globalism had prevailed over self-isolation and suspicion, adulthood over infantilism.”

1 December 2020 By Viktor Kogan-Yasny Russian history of the previous and current century has been marked by immaturity: the inability (and lack of need) to see that the world…

Continue ReadingViktor Kogan-Yasny: “We were mistaken when we thought that the Communist utopia had been defeated by the desire for development and responsibility, that globalism had prevailed over self-isolation and suspicion, adulthood over infantilism.”

Dmitry Bykov: Lukashenko’s visit to the remand centre showed boundless cynicism and outright blackmail

13 October 2020 By Dmitry Bykov, writer, poet, and journalist: Source: Moscow Helsinki Group [original source: Ekho Moskvy] Aleksandr Lukashenko has presented Belarusians with an intractable moral dilemma. But moral dilemmas…

Continue ReadingDmitry Bykov: Lukashenko’s visit to the remand centre showed boundless cynicism and outright blackmail