Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer, serving as the current president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime minister from 1999 to 2000 and from 2008 to 2012, and as president from 2000 to 2008 and since 2012.
Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovsky was a Russian-born British human rights activist and writer. From the late 1950s to the mid-1970s, he was a prominent figure in the Soviet dissident movement, well known at home and abroad. He spent a total of twelve years in the psychiatric prison-hospitals, labour camps, and prisons of the Soviet Union during Brezhnev rule.
Andrey Nikolayevich Illarionov is a Russian economist and former senior policy advisor to Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, from April 2000 to December 2005. Since April 2021, he is a senior fellow at the non-governmental organization Center for Security Policy, which is based out of Washington, D.C. in the United States.
Valeriya Ilyinichna Novodvorskaya was a Soviet dissident, writer and liberal politician. She was the founder and the chairwoman of the Democratic Union party and a member of the editorial board of The New Times.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Kara-Murza is a Russian political activist, journalist, author, and filmmaker. A protégé of Boris Nemtsov, he serves as vice-chairman of Open Russia, an NGO founded by Russian businessman and former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, which promotes civil society and democracy in Russia. He was elected to the Coordinating Council of the Russian Opposition in 2012, and served as deputy leader of the People's Freedom Party from 2015 to 2016. He has directed two documentaries, They Chose Freedom and Nemtsov. As of 2021, he acts as Senior Fellow to the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights. He was awarded the Civil Courage Prize in 2018.
Andrey Vadimovich Makarevich PAR is a Soviet and Russian rock musician and the founder of Russia's oldest still active rock band Mashina Vremeni.
They Chose Freedom is a four-part TV documentary on the history of political dissent in the USSR from the 1950s to the 1990s. It was produced in 2005 by Vladimir Kara-Murza.
REN TV is a Russian free-to-air television network, was founded on 1 January 1997 by Irena Lesnevskaya and her son, Dmitry Lesnevsky, who had been running REN TV as a production house for other national Russian television channels. Though it focuses mostly on audiences aged between 18 and 45 years old, the network offers programming for a wide range of demographics.
Alexander Valterovich "Sasha" Litvinenko was a British-naturalised Russian defector and former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) who specialised in tackling organized crime. A prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, he advised British intelligence and coined the term "mafia state".
Andrey Andreyevich Piontkovsky is a Russian scientist and political writer and analyst, a member of International PEN Club. He is a former member of the Russian Opposition Coordination Council.
John Ross Beyrle is an American diplomat. A career Foreign Service Officer and specialist in Russian and Eastern European affairs, he served as Ambassador of the United States to the Russian Federation from July 3, 2008, until January 10, 2012, and as Ambassador to Bulgaria from 2005 to 2008.
Cuba–Russia relations reflect the political, economic and cultural exchanges between Cuba and Russia. These countries have had close cooperation since the days of the Soviet Union. Russia has an embassy in Havana and a consulate-general in Santiago de Cuba. Cuba has an embassy in Moscow and an honorary consulate in Saint Petersburg. Around 55,000 people of Russian descent live in Cuba.
Lyudmila Mikhaylovna Alexeyeva was a Russian historian and human-rights activist who was a founding member in 1976 of the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group and one of the last Soviet dissidents active in post-Soviet Russia.
"Putin Must Go" is a Russian website and public campaign organised for the collection of signatures to an open letter demanding the resignation of President Vladimir Putin. The campaign was started on the Internet on 10 March 2010 by Russian opposition activists, including several Russian artists.
Sergei Adamovich Kovalyov was a Russian human rights activist and politician. During the Soviet period he was a dissident and, after 1975, a political prisoner.
Angus Roxburgh is a British journalist, broadcaster, former external PR consultant to the Russian government, and singer-songwriter.
The 2011–2013 Russian protests, which some English language media referred to as the Snow Revolution, began in 2011 and continued into 2012 and 2013. The protests were motivated by claims of Russian and foreign journalists, political activists and members of the public that the election process was fraudulent. The Central Election Commission of Russia stated 11.5% of official reports of fraud could be confirmed as true.
Vladimir Rostislavovich Medinsky is a Russian political figure, academic and publicist who served as the Minister of Culture from May 2012 to January 2020. He is a member of the General Council of the United Russia party.
Dmitri Vitalyevich Trenin is a member of Russia’s Foreign and Defence Policy Council. He was the director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, a Russian think tank. A former colonel of Russian military intelligence, Trenin served for 21 years in the Soviet Army and Russian Ground Forces, before joining Carnegie in 1994.
Anton Borisovich Nossik was a Russian journalist, social activist and blogger. Sometimes he is called one of the godfathers of the Russian Internet or the first Russian-language blogger. He was an editor for the Russian online news publications Vesti.ru, Lenta.ru, Gazeta.ru and NEWSru.com.
