Putinland is a political neologism referring to Russia under the rule of Vladimir Putin. The term has been used in various contexts, from portraying Russia as a corrupt and murderous regime where the line between security forces and organized crime is blurred, to a military industrial oil and gas concern [1] [2] [3] that is ready to swat away criticism at home, squash troublesome neighbours, and sacrifice personal freedoms in the name of a strong centralised state. [4]
Professor of International Affairs, Nina L. Khrushcheva, defines Putin-land as, a Gogol-like, "country of illusions and imagination, in which perceptions are more important than facts, where officials are corrupt and people are oppressed because they all live in a dream of empire," while, in fact, "individual needs are neglected, the state's needs are overstated, and everyone is condemned to a life of cheating and stealing, consoling themselves that, while there is no justice, they are at least part of a great country." [5]
The term was used by Anna Politkovskaya in an interview held 18 months before her death, she said in relation to the murders of 15 investigative journalists: "It's the same old story, nobody who tells the truth in Putinland is safe." [6]
A five-part French documentary called Murder by Numbers in Putinland has been made probing the suppression of dissent in Russia and the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in London, along with interviews of the prime suspect in the Litvinenko murder, Andre Lugovoi, who is considered a hero in Russia. [7]
Edward Lucas refers to Russia as "Putinland" when he claims that Russian publishers refused to publish the bestselling book Gulag by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anne Applebaum. According to Lucas, the Kremlin moves against texts that cast the Soviet Union in an unfavourable light He also noted that a possible reason the book was not published in Russia is due to low demand, in what he describes as fatigue amongst Russians in hearing about the history of the gulags, and noted that if it were published in Russian, it is likely it would sell worse than an Icelandic cookbook. [8]
Nina L. Khrushcheva, a Russian American professor of media and culture, wrote in the International Herald Tribune : "Uniforms are in and patriotic youth organizations such as Nashi (Ours), successor to the Soviet-era Pioneers, are on the march. The economy is great, Gazprom is great, the military is great, Putin is great: The empire remains ours. The Russians are eager to believe that they no longer live in a country defeated by the West. Instead they live in an oil and gas powered Putin-land." [5]
British journalist and author Roger Boyes, who is the Berlin correspondent for British newspaper The Times covering Germany, noted that "even the Germans have come to realise that Holy Russia has become PutinLand, ready to swat away criticism at home, squash troublesome neighbours and sacrifice personal freedoms in the name of a strong centralised state", [9] a view published in his column in German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel . [4]
Boris Abramovich Berezovsky, also known as Platon Elenin, was a Russian business oligarch, government official, engineer and mathematician and a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He had the federal state civilian service rank of 1st class Active State Councillor of the Russian Federation.
The Russian mafia, otherwise referred to as bratva, is a collective of various organized crime related elements originating in the former Soviet Union (FSU). Any of the mafia's groups may be referred to as an "Organized Criminal Group". This is sometimes modified to include a specific name, such as the Orekhovskaya OPG. Sometimes, the Russian word is dropped in favour of a full translation, and OCG is used instead of OPG.
In September 1999, a series of explosions hit four apartment blocks in the Russian cities of Buynaksk, Moscow, and Volgodonsk, killing more than 300, injuring more than 1,000, and spreading a wave of fear across the country. The bombings, together with the Invasion of Dagestan, triggered the Second Chechen War. The handling of the crisis by Vladimir Putin, who was prime minister at the time, boosted his popularity greatly and helped him attain the presidency within a few months.
Anne Elizabeth Applebaum is an American journalist and historian. She has written extensively about the history of Communism and the development of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe. Applebaum also holds Polish citizenship.
Memorial is an international human rights organisation, founded in Russia during the fall of the Soviet Union to study and examine the human rights violations and other crimes committed under Joseph Stalin's reign. Subsequently, it expanded the scope of its research to cover the entire Soviet period. Memorial is the recipient of numerous awarded, among others the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022.
Saint Petersburg Mining University, is Russia's oldest technical university and one of the oldest technical colleges in Europe. It was founded on October 21, 1773, by Empress Catherine the Great, who realised an idea proposed by Peter the Great and Mikhail Lomonosov for training engineers for the mining and metals industries. Having a strong engineering profession was seen by many Russian rulers as a vital means of maintaining Russia's status as a great power. As historian Alfred J. Rieber wrote, "The marriage of technology and central state power had a natural attraction for Peter the Great and his successors, particularly Paul I, Alexander I, and Nicholas I". All three had had a military education and had seen the achievements of the engineers of revolutionary and imperial France, who had reconstructed the great highways, unified the waterways and erected buildings throughout Europe in a more lasting tribute to the French than all of Napoleon's victories.
Andrei Lvovich Nekrasov is a Russian film and TV director from Saint Petersburg.
Semion Yudkovich Mogilevich is a Jewish Ukrainian-born Russian organized crime boss. He quickly built a highly structured criminal organization, in the mode of an American mafia family; many of the organization's 250 members are his relatives. He is described by agencies in the European Union and United States as the "boss of all bosses" of most Russian Mafia syndicates in the world, he is believed to direct a multibillion-dollar international criminal empire and is described by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as "the most powerful and dangerous gangster in the world," with immense power and reach at a global scale, and connections to prominent government, military, and law enforcement officials, and powerful politicians around the world. He has been accused by the FBI of "weapons trafficking, contract murders, extortion, drug trafficking, and prostitution on an international scale."
Jeffrey Tayler is a U.S.-born author and journalist. He is the Russia correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly and a contributor to several other magazines as well as to NPR's All Things Considered. He has written several non-fiction books about different regions of the world which include Facing the Congo, Siberian Dawn, Glory in a Camel's Eye, and Angry Wind, the latter being a portrait of a journey through the Muslim portion of black Africa. River of no Reprieve is about a challenging raft trip down Russia's Lena River. Tayler holds both a Bachelor of Arts degree from Syracuse University, and a Master of Arts degree from the University of Virginia.
An energy superpower is a country that supplies large amounts of energy resources to a significant number of other countries, and therefore has the potential to influence world markets for political or economic gains. Energy superpower status might be exercised, for example, by significantly influencing the price on global markets, or by withholding supplies. Most recently, the term "energy superpower" is increasingly used to characterize nations at the forefront of energy transition and the development of renewable energy resources.
Alexander Valterovich Litvinenko was a British-naturalised Russian defector and former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) who specialised in tackling organised crime. A prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, he advised British intelligence and coined the term "mafia state".
This is a list of criminal acts intentionally involving radioactive substances. Inclusion in this list does not necessarily imply that anyone involved was guilty of a crime. For accidents or crimes that involved radioactive substances unbeknownst to those involved, see the Nuclear and radiation accidents and incidents.
Alexander Litvinenko was an officer of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and its predecessor, the KGB, until he left the service and fled the country in autumn 2000.
Alexander Davidovich Goldfarb is a Russian-American microbiologist, activist, and author. He emigrated from the USSR in 1975 and studied in Israel and Germany before settling permanently in New York in 1982. Goldfarb is a naturalized American citizen. He has combined a scientific career as a microbiologist with political and public activities focused on civil liberties and human rights in Russia, in the course of which he has been associated with Andrei Sakharov, George Soros, Boris Berezovsky, and Alexander Litvinenko. He has not visited Russia since 2000.
12 is a 2007 Russian legal drama film by director, screenwriter, producer and actor Nikita Mikhalkov. The film is a Russian-language remake of Sidney Lumet's 1957 film 12 Angry Men, which in turn was based on Reginald Rose's 1955 stage play, Twelve Angry Men, itself based on Rose's 1954 teleplay of the latter's same name.
Achemez Gochiyayev is a Russian citizen who was accused of organizing the Russian apartment bombings, a series of terrorist acts in 1999 that killed 307 people and led the country into the Second Chechen War. The five bombings took place during two weeks between September 4 and September 16, 1999, in Moscow, and the southern towns of Buynaksk and Volgodonsk. Gochiyayev has not been arrested or convicted and ostensibly remains a fugitive; he has not been seen since early March 2002.
Roger Boyes is a British journalist and author. He is the diplomatic editor for the London Times newspaper. He also has a column in the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel entitled 'My Berlin'.
A petrostate or oil state is a country whose economy is heavily dependent on the extraction and export of oil or natural gas. The presence alone of large oil and gas industries does not define a petrostate: major oil producers that also have diversified economies are not classified as petrostates due to their ability to generate income from various industries and sectors beyond the oil industry. Petrostates also have highly concentrated political and economic power, resting in the hands of an elite, as well as unaccountable political institutions which are susceptible to corruption.
Russian imperialism includes the policy and ideology of power exerted by Russia, as well as its antecedent states, over other countries and external territories. This includes the conquests of the Russian Empire, the imperial actions of the Soviet Union, as well as those of the modern Russian Federation. Some postcolonial scholars have noted the lack of attention given to Russian and Soviet imperialism in the discipline.
Alexander Etkind is a historian and cultural scientist. He is a professor of history and the Chair of Russia-Europe relations at the European University Institute. He is fellow of the European Institute for International Law and International Relations.