Anders Aslund is a Swedish-American economist and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, specializing in post-Soviet economies and political transitions. He contributed analysis to The Weekly Standard on Russian and Ukrainian affairs, covering figures such as Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin and the broader trajectory of post-communist reform. He is the author of numerous books on Russia's economic transformation.
IN RUSSIA, gangsters have the macabre custom of making a birthday present of a murder. On Vladimir Putin's 54th birthday, one of his fiercest domestic critics, the journalist Anna Politkovskaya, was shot to death in her apartment building in central Moscow. She worked for the weekly Novaya Gazeta,…
RARELY HAS A PRESIDENT, successful in his first term, collapsed so totally in his second term as Russia's Vladimir Putin did in 2004. Alberto Fujimori of Peru might offer the closest parallel, with Carlos Menem of Argentina another contender.
Donetsk, Ukraine
ON MONDAY, MARCH 23, 1998, the irrepressible Boris Yeltsin sacked his entire government, including his prime minister, Viktor Chernomyrdin. The Russian president's move came as a bolt from the blue. In most countries, the unexpected demise of a government would generate uncertainty and prompt the…
On November 19, an editorial in the New York Times demanded the ouster of Anatoly Chubais, the leading free-market stalwart in the Russian government, for accepting a book advance of $ 90,000. Though politically foolish, the book deal was probably legal; indeed, the relatively modest sum involved…