Maria Lipman is no longer with the Carnegie Endowment.
Maria Lipman was the editor in chief of the Pro et Contra journal published by the Carnegie Moscow Center. She was also the expert of the Carnegie Moscow Center’s Society and Regions Program.
Lipman served as deputy editor of the Russian weekly newsmagazines Ezhenedel’ny zhurnal, from 2001 to 2003, and Itogi, from 1995 to 2001. She has worked as a translator, researcher, and contributor for the Washington Post’s Moscow bureau and has had a monthly op-ed column in the Washington Post since 2001.
She is the author of “Constrained or Irrelevant: The Media in Putin’s Russia,” (Current History, October 2005); “Putin and the Media,” with Michael McFaul, in Putin’s Russia: Past Imperfect, Future Uncertain, edited by Dale R. Herspring (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003); “Managed Democracy in Russia: Putin and the Press?” with Michael McFaul, in Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics (Summer 2001); and “Russia’s Free Press Withers Away,” The New York Review of Books, (May 31, 2001).
Russian Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky’s primary motive is to curry favor with Vladimir Putin. As Putin has shifted gears to a more conservative, anti-Western, and isolationist outlook, scores of his aggressive loyalists have followed the new trend.
Russia will likely succeed in holding sway over Ukraine and turning this country into its buffer zone, but it cannot secure itself from the people’s resentment and resistance.
The seizure of Crimea is Putin’s personal conquest, as well as a dramatic reinforcement of his regime of personal power. For now Putin has succeeded in halting Russia’s social and economic modernization and has pushed Russia to an anti-modernization course.
Vladimir Putin’s policy is to do what he sees right, regardless of what others think about it. He is ready for sanctions and to accept the costs.
The Ukrainian crisis has intensified the Kremlin’s crackdown on the Russian media. Nongovernment media simply no longer belong in today’s Russia.
It seems unlikely that Russian armed forces will move beyond the Crimean peninsula. The softer and more conciliatory tone taken by Putin could be a result of the determination of the United States and Europe to take action against Russia.
The situation in Ukraine is very unstable and dangerous, and Moscow's support of the delayed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and non-recognition of the new authorities in Kyiv only adds to the tension.
Russia and the EU are trying to pull Ukraine into their orbit rather than cooperating on what would be best for the country.
Just as any grand event, the Sochi Olympics will soon be over and Russia will remain with itself. Its prospects are uncertain since the economic growth has dropped and the Kremlin’s policy has shifted toward social conservatism.
The aggravation of the human rights situation in today’s Russia is impossible to deny. What makes things worse is that in Russia the political power is above the law.
