The very idea of early mayoral elections was meant to strengthen positions of authorities in elections to the Moscow city Duma next year. It worked the opposite way.

During 2013 election campaign the Kremlin being faced with serious challenges is trying to react and to preserve the system by making some improvements—not in order to make citizens happy but in order to survive.

Construction and agriculture are the two main industries where North Koreans work in Russia. Their work is in the mutual interest of both countries, providing for additional jobs and money in the case of North Korea and substituting for the decreasing labor force in the case of Russia.

The very idea to separate the Caucasus from Russia which seemed exotic a while ago, gets increasingly more supporters, not as much in the Caucasus as in the rest of the country.

Not everyone likes to celebrate June 12 as a holiday. Yet what other date can be offered to mark the creation of a new Russia?

Following Putin’s re-election, Russia faces two more key junctures that could shape the country’s future. The Kremlin will have to deal with limited revenues and it faces another election cycle in 2016-18.

The Kremlin recognizes that decentralization is both necessary and inevitable, but Putin’s proposals for the Russian regions demonstrate that the regime is not quite ready to make decentralization a reality.

Russian society is waking up and pushing back against Putin’s brand of authoritarianism, with the potential to bring about a transformation of the system into one based on the rule of law.

The Kremlin is unlikely to agree with all of the Institute for Social, Economic and Political Studies’ proposals for improving the gubernatorial election process.

If the Russian authorities want to gain a free hand in implementing their social and economic measures, they must first extricate themselves from the current political crisis.