The foreign relations of the Russian Federation is the policy of the government of Russia by which it guides the interactions with other nations, their citizens and foreign organizations. This article covers the foreign policy of the Russian Federation since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in late 1991.
Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky is an exiled Russian businessman, philanthropist and former oligarch, now resident in Switzerland. In 2003, Khodorkovsky was believed to be the wealthiest man in Russia and was ranked 16th on Forbes list of billionaires. He had worked his way up the Komsomol apparatus during the Soviet years, and started several businesses during the period of glasnost and perestroika in the late 1980s. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, in the mid-1990s, he accumulated considerable wealth by obtaining control of a number of Siberian oil fields unified under the name Yukos, one of the major companies to emerge from the privatization of state assets during the 1990s.
In politics of Russia, a silovik is politician who came into politics from the security or military services, often the officers of the former KGB, GRU, FSB, SVR, the Federal Drug Control or other security services who came into power. A similar term is "securocrat".
Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev is a Russian politician who has served as the Prime Minister of Russia since 2012. From 2008 to 2012, Medvedev served as the third President of Russia.
Russian–European Union relations are the international relations between the European Union (EU) and its largest bordering state, Russia, to the east. The relations of individual member states of the European Union and Russia vary, though a 1990s common foreign policy outline towards Russia was the first such EU foreign policy agreed. Furthermore, four European Union-Russia Common Spaces are agreed as a framework for establishing better relations. The latest EU-Russia strategic partnership was signed in 2011, but it was later challenged by the European Parliament in 2015 following the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbass.
William Felix Browder is an American-born British financier and economist. He is the CEO and co-founder of Hermitage Capital Management, an investment fund that at one time was the largest foreign portfolio investor in Russia. He gave up his U.S. citizenship in 1998 to avoid paying taxes related to foreign investment. After having business in Russia for ten years, Browder was refused entry to Russia in 2005 as a threat to national security; he has said it was because he exposed corruption.
The Russian Tax Code is the primary tax law for the Russian Federation. The Code was created, adopted and implemented in three stages.
Alexander Valterovich Litvinenko was a British naturalised Russian defector and former officer of the Russian FSB secret service who specialised in tackling organised crime. According to US diplomats, Litvinenko coined the phrase Mafia state. In November 1998, Litvinenko and several other FSB officers publicly accused their superiors of ordering the assassination of the Russian tycoon and oligarch Boris Berezovsky. Litvinenko was arrested the following March on charges of exceeding the authority of his position. He was acquitted in November 1999 but re-arrested before the charges were again dismissed in 2000. He fled with his family to London and was granted asylum in the United Kingdom, where he worked as a journalist, writer and consultant for the British intelligence services.
The web brigades, also known as Russia's troll army, Russian bots, Putinbots, Kremlinbots, troll factory, or troll farms are state-sponsored anonymous Internet political commentators and trolls linked to the Russian government. Participants report that they are organized into teams and groups of commentators that participate in Russian and international political blogs and Internet forums using sockpuppets and large-scale orchestrated trolling and disinformation campaigns to promote pro-Putin and pro-Russian propaganda. It has also been found that articles on Russian Wikipedia concerning the MH17 crash and the 2014 Ukraine conflict were targeted by Russian internet propaganda outlets.
Media freedom in Russia concerns both the ability of directors of mass-media outlets to carry out independent policies and the ability of journalists to access sources of information and to work without outside pressure. Media of Russia include television and radio channels, periodicals, and Internet media, which according to the laws of the Russian Federation may be either state or private property.
Vladimir Putin has served three terms and is currently in a fourth as President of Russia and was Acting President from 1999 to 2000, succeeding Boris Yeltsin after Yeltsin's resignation. Putin was also Prime Minister for three months in 1999 and served a full term from 2008 to 2012. During Putin's presidency, he has been a member of the Unity party and the United Russia party. He is also affiliated with the People’s Front, a group of supporters that Putin organized in 2011 to help improve the public's perception of United Russia. His political ideology, priorities and policies are sometimes referred to as Putinism.
The Movement for Defence of Voters' Rights "Golos", formerly GOLOS Association is a Russian organisation established in 2000 to protect the electoral rights of citizens and to foster civil society. As of 2008, the organisation covers 40 Russian regions. It is the only election watchdog active in Russia that is independent of the Russian government.
Libya–Russia relations is the bilateral relationship between the two countries, Libya and Russia. Russia has an embassy in Tripoli, and Libya has an embassy in Moscow. Diplomatic contact between Russia and Libya has generally been close and productive; seeing as both countries have had and continue to see volatile relations with the United States. Leader Muammar al-Gaddafi was a close ally of the Soviet Union, despite his country's membership in the Non-Aligned Movement; also Russia regarded Libya as one of its strongest allies in the Arab world. After the Libyan Civil War Russia has supported stabilizing the country, and since the outbreak of the new conflict it has primarily backed the Tobruk-based Council of Deputies over the UN-backed Government of National Accord and various other factions.
The foreign policy of Vladimir Putin concerns the policies of Russia's president Vladimir Putin with respect to other nations. He held office from 2000 to 2008, and assumed power again in 2012.
The Great Recession in Russia was a crisis during 2008–2009 in the Russian financial markets as well as an economic recession that was compounded by political fears after the war with Georgia and by the plummeting price of Urals heavy crude oil, which lost more than 70% of its value since its record peak of US$147 on 4 July 2008 before rebounding moderately in 2009. According to the World Bank, Russia’s strong short-term macroeconomic fundamentals made it better prepared than many emerging economies to deal with the crisis, but its underlying structural weaknesses and high dependence on the price of a single commodity made its impact more pronounced than would otherwise be the case.
Automotive production is a significant industry in Russia, directly employing around 600,000 people or 1% of the country's total workforce. Russia produced 1,303,989 vehicles in 2016, ranking 16th among car-producing nations in 2016, and accounting for 1.4% of the worldwide production. The main local brands are light vehicle producers AvtoVAZ and GAZ, while KamAZ is the leading heavy vehicle producer. Eleven foreign carmakers have production operations or are constructing their plants in Russia.
The Dima Yakovlev Law, Dima Yakovlev Bill, Dima Yakovlev Act, anti-Magnitsky law, or Federal law of Russian Federation no. 272-FZ of 2012-12-28 "On Sanctions for Individuals Violating Fundamental Human Rights and Freedoms of the Citizens of the Russian Federation" is a law in Russia that defines sanctions against U.S. citizens involved in "violations of the human rights and freedoms of Russian citizens". It creates a list of citizens who are banned from entering Russia, and also allows the government to freeze their assets and investments. The law suspends the activity of politically active non-profit organisations which receive money from American citizens or organisations. It also bans citizens of the United States from adopting children from Russia. The law was signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin on 28 December 2012 and took effect on 1 January 2013. The law is informally named after a Russian orphan adopted by a family from Purcellville, Virginia, who died of heat stroke after being left in a parked car for nine hours. The law is described as a response to the Magnitsky Act in the United States, which places sanctions on Russian officials who were involved in a tax scandal exposed by Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky against Russian officials; Magnitsky was later found to have been handcuffed and tortured while in jail.
The political career of Vladimir Putin concerns the career of Vladimir Putin in politics, including his current tenure as President of Russia.
The Wagner Group, also known as PMC Wagner, ChVK Wagner, or CHVK Vagner, is a Russian paramilitary organization. Some have described it as a private military company, whose contractors have reportedly taken part in various conflicts, including operations in the Syrian Civil War on the side of the Syrian government as well as, from 2014 until 2015, in the War in Donbass in Ukraine aiding the separatist forces of the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics. Others are of the opinion that ChVK Wagner is really a unit of the Russian Ministry of Defence in disguise, which is used by the Russian government in conflicts where deniability is called for.
