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World > Countries

Russia

Map of Russia

Russian Federation

President: Vladimir Putin (2012)

Prime Minister: Dmitry Medvedev
(2012)
Land area: 6,592,812 sq mi
(17,075,400 sq km); total area:
6,592,735 sq mi (17,075,200 sq km)
Population (2014 est.): 142,470,272
(growth rate: 0.03%); birth rate:
11.87/1000; infant mortality rate:
7.08/1000; life expectancy: 70.16;
density per sq mi: 21.5
Capital and largest city (2011 est.):
Moscow, 11.621 million
Other large cities: St. Petersburg,
4.866 million; Novosibirsk, 1.478
million; Yekaterinburg, 1.355 million;
Nizhny Novgorod, 1.245 million;
Samara, 1.166 million
Monetary unit: Russian ruble (RUR)
National name: Rossiyskaya
Federatsiya
Current government officials
Languages: Russian (official) 96.3%,
Dolgang 5.3%, German 1.5%, Chechen
1%, Tatar 3%, other 10.3% (2010 est.)
Ethnicity/race: Russian 77.7%, Tatar
3.7%, Ukrainian 1.4%, Bashkir 1.1%,
Chuvash 1%, Chechen 1%, other
10.2%, unspecified 3.9% (2010)
Religions: Russian Orthodox 15%
20%, other Christian 2%, Islam 10%
15% (2006 est.; includes practicing
worshippers only)
Literacy rate: 99.7% (2010 est.)

Economic summary: GDP/PPP (2013

est.): $2.553 trillion; per capita $18,100.
Real growth rate: 1.3%. Inflation:
6.8%. Unemployment: 5.8%. Arable
land: 7.11%. Agriculture: grain, sugar
beets, sunflower seeds, vegetables,
fruits; beef, milk. Labor force: 75.29
million; agriculture 9.7%, industry
27.8%, services 62.5% (2012 est.).
Industries: complete range of mining
and extractive industries producing
coal, oil, gas, chemicals, and metals; all
forms of machine building from rolling
mills to high-performance aircraft and
space vehicles; defense industries
including radar, missile production, and
advanced electronic components,
shipbuilding; road and rail
transportation equipment;
communications equipment; agricultural
machinery, tractors, and construction
equipment; electric power generating
and transmitting equipment; medical
and scientific instruments; consumer
durables, textiles, foodstuffs,
handicrafts. Natural resources: wide
natural resource base including major
deposits of oil, natural gas, coal, and
many strategic minerals, reserves of
rare earth elements, timber; note:
formidable obstacles of climate, terrain,
and distance hinder exploitation of
natural resources. Exports: $515 billion
(2013 est.): petroleum and petroleum
products, natural gas, wood and wood
products, metals, chemicals, and a wide
variety of civilian and military
manufactures. Imports: $341 billion
(2013 est.): machinery, vehicles,
pharmaceutical products, plastic, semifinished metal products, meat, fruits and
nuts, optical and medical instruments,
iron, steel. Major trading partners:
Netherlands, Germany, Ukraine, Italy,
China, Belarus, U.S., Switzerland,
Turkey, Japan, France (2012).
Communications: Telephones: main
lines in use: 42.9 million (2012); mobile
cellular: 261.9 million (2012). Radio
broadcast stations: AM 323, FM 1,500
est., shortwave 62 (2004). Radios: 61.5
million (1997). Television broadcast
stations: 5,700 (2007). Televisions:

60.5 million (1997). Internet Service

Providers (ISPs): 14.865 million
(2012). Internet users: 40.853 million
(2009).
Transportation: Railways: total:
87,157 km (2006). Highways: total:
1,283,387 km paved: 927,721 km
(includes 39,143 km of expressways)
unpaved: 355,666 km note: includes
public and departmental roads (2012).
Waterways: Waterways 102,000 km
(including 33,000 km with guaranteed
depth) note: 72,000 km system in
European Russia links Baltic Sea,
White Sea, Caspian Sea, Sea of Azov,
and Black Sea (2009). Ports and
harbors: Aleksandrovsk-Sakhalinsky,
Arkhangel'sk, Astrakhan', De-Kastri,
Indigirskiy, Kaliningrad, Kandalaksha,
Kazan', Khabarovsk, Kholmsk,
Krasnoyarsk, Lazarev, Mago, Mezen',
Moscow, Murmansk, Nakhodka,
Nevel'sk, Novorossiysk, Onega,
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, Rostov,
Shakhtersk, Saint Petersburg, Sochi,
Taganrog, Tuapse, Uglegorsk, Vanino,
Vladivostok, Volgograd, Vostochnyy,
Vyborg. Airports: 1,218 (2013).
International disputes: Russia
remains concerned about the
smuggling of poppy derivatives from
Afghanistan through Central Asian
countries; China and Russia have
demarcated the once disputed islands
at the Amur and Ussuri confluence and
in the Argun River in accordance with
the 2004 Agreement, ending their
centuries-long border disputes; the
sovereignty dispute over the islands of
Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan, and the
Habomai group, known in Japan as the
"Northern Territories" and in Russia as
the "Southern Kurils," occupied by the
Soviet Union in 1945, now administered
by Russia, and claimed by Japan,
remains the primary sticking point to
signing a peace treaty formally ending
World War II hostilities; Russia's military
support and subsequent recognition of
Abkhazia and South Ossetia
independence in 2008 continue to sour
relations with Georgia; Azerbaijan,

Kazakhstan, and Russia ratified

Caspian seabed delimitation treaties
based on equidistance, while Iran
continues to insist on a one-fifth slice of
the sea; Norway and Russia signed a
comprehensive maritime boundary
agreement in 2010; various groups in
Finland advocate restoration of Karelia
(Kareliya) and other areas ceded to the
Soviet Union following World War II but
the Finnish Government asserts no
territorial demands; Russia and Estonia
signed a technical border agreement in
May 2005, but Russia recalled its
signature in June 2005 after the
Estonian parliament added to its
domestic ratification act a historical
preamble referencing the Soviet
occupation and Estonia's pre-war
borders under the 1920 Treaty of Tartu;
Russia contends that the preamble
allows Estonia to make territorial claims
on Russia in the future, while Estonian
officials deny that the preamble has any
legal impact on the treaty text; Russia
demands better treatment of the
Russian-speaking population in Estonia
and Latvia; Lithuania and Russia
committed to demarcating their
boundary in 2006 in accordance with
the land and maritime treaty ratified by
Russia in May 2003 and by Lithuania in
1999; Lithuania operates a simplified
transit regime for Russian nationals
traveling from the Kaliningrad coastal
exclave into Russia, while still
conforming, as an EU member state
with an EU external border, where strict
Schengen border rules apply;
preparations for the demarcation
delimitation of land boundary with
Ukraine have commenced; the dispute
over the boundary between Russia and
Ukraine through the Kerch Strait and
Sea of Azov is suspended due to the
occupation of Crimea by Russia;
Kazakhstan and Russia boundary
delimitation was ratified on November
2005 and field demarcation should
commence in 2007; Russian Duma has
not yet ratified 1990 Bering Sea
Maritime Boundary Agreement with the
US; Denmark (Greenland) and Norway

have made submissions to the

Commission on the Limits of the
Continental shelf (CLCS) and Russia is
collecting additional data to augment its
2001 CLCS submission
Major sources and definitions

Rulers of Russia Since 1533

Geography | Government | History

Geography

The Russian Federation is the largest of the 21

republics that make up the Commonwealth of
Independent States. It occupies most of eastern
Europe and north Asia, stretching from the Baltic
Sea in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east,
and from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the
Black Sea and the Caucasus in the south. It is
bordered by Norway and Finland in the
northwest; Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, Ukraine,
Poland, and Lithuania in the west; Georgia and
Azerbaijan in the southwest; and Kazakhstan,
Mongolia, China, and North Korea along the
southern border.

Government

Constitutional federation.

History

Tradition says the Viking Rurik came to Russia in

862 and founded the first Russian dynasty in
Novgorod. The various tribes were united by the
spread of Christianity in the 10th and 11th
centuries; Vladimir the Saint was converted in
988. During the 11th century, the grand dukes of
Kiev held such centralizing power as existed. In
1240, Kiev was destroyed by the Mongols, and
the Russian territory was split into numerous

smaller dukedoms. Early dukes of Moscow

extended their dominion over other Russian
cities through their office of tribute collector for
the Mongols and because of Moscow's role as
an administrative and trade center.
In the late 15th century, Duke Ivan III acquired
Novgorod and Tver and threw off the Mongol
yoke. Ivan IVthe Terrible (15331584), first
Muscovite czaris considered to have founded
the Russian state. He crushed the power of rival
princes and boyars (great landowners), but
Russia remained largely medieval until the reign
of Peter the Great (16891725), grandson of the
first Romanov czar, Michael (16131645). Peter
made extensive reforms aimed at westernization
and, through his defeat of Charles XII of Sweden
at the Battle of Poltava in 1709, he extended
Russia's boundaries to the west. Catherine the
Great (17621796) continued Peter's
westernization program and also expanded
Russian territory, acquiring the Crimea, Ukraine,
and part of Poland. During the reign of Alexander
I (18011825), Napolon's attempt to subdue
Russia was defeated (18121813), and new
territory was gained, including Finland (1809)
and Bessarabia (1812). Alexander originated the
Holy Alliance, which for a time crushed Europe's
rising liberal movement.
Alexander II (18551881) pushed Russia's
borders to the Pacific and into central Asia.
Serfdom was abolished in 1861, but heavy
restrictions were imposed on the emancipated
class. Revolutionary strikes, following Russia's
defeat in the war with Japan, forced Nicholas II
(18941917) to grant a representative national
body (Duma), elected by narrowly limited
suffrage. It met for the first time in 1906 but had
little influence on Nicholas.
The Bolshevik Revolution

World War I demonstrated czarist corruption and

inefficiency, and only patriotism held the poorly
equipped army together for a time. Disorders
broke out in Petrograd (renamed Leningrad and
now St. Petersburg) in March 1917, and
defection of the Petrograd garrison launched the
revolution. Nicholas II was forced to abdicate on
March 15, 1917, and he and his family were
killed by revolutionaries on July 16, 1918. A
provisional government under the successive
prime ministerships of Prince Lvov and a

moderate, Alexander Kerensky, lost ground to

the radical, or Bolshevik, wing of the Socialist
Democratic Labor Party. On Nov. 7, 1917, the
Bolshevik Revolution, engineered by Vladimir
Lenin and Leon Trotsky, overthrew the Kerensky
government, and authority was vested in a
Council of People's Commissars, with Lenin as
prime minister.
The humiliating Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (March 3,
1918) concluded the war with Germany, but civil
war and foreign intervention delayed Communist
control of all Russia until 1920. A brief war with
Poland in 1920 resulted in Russian defeat.
Emergence of the USSR

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was

established as a federation on Dec. 30, 1922.
The death of Lenin on Jan. 21, 1924, precipitated
an intraparty struggle between Joseph Stalin,
general secretary of the party, and Trotsky, who
favored swifter socialization at home and
fomentation of revolution abroad. Trotsky was
dismissed as commissar of war in 1925 and
banished from the Soviet Union in 1929. He was
murdered in Mexico City on Aug. 21, 1940, by a
political agent. Stalin further consolidated his
power by a series of purges in the late 1930s,
liquidating prominent party leaders and military
officers. Stalin assumed the prime ministership
on May 6, 1941.
The term Stalinism has become defined as an
inhumane, draconian socialism. Stalin sent
millions of Soviets who did not conform to the
Stalinist ideal to forced-labor camps, and he
persecuted his country's vast number of ethnic
groupsreserving particular vitriol for Jews and
Ukrainians. Soviet historian Roy Medvedev
estimated that about 20 million died from
starvation, executions, forced collectivization,
and life in the labor camps under Stalin's rule.
Soviet foreign policy, at first friendly toward
Germany and antagonistic toward Britain and
France and then, after Hitler's rise to power in
1933, becoming anti-Fascist and proLeague of
Nations, took an abrupt turn on Aug. 24, 1939,
with the signing of a nonaggression pact with
Nazi Germany. The next month, Moscow joined
in the German attack on Poland, seizing territory
later incorporated into the Ukrainian and
Belorussian SSRs. The Russo-Finnish War

(19391940) added territory to the Karelian SSR

set up on March 31, 1940; the annexation of
Bessarabia and Bukovina from Romania became
part of the new Moldavian SSR on Aug. 2, 1940;
and the annexation of the Baltic republics of
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in June 1940
created the 14th, 15th, and 16th Soviet republics.
The Soviet-German collaboration ended abruptly
with a lightning attack by Hitler on June 22, 1941,
which seized 500,000 sq mi of Russian territory
before Soviet defenses, aided by U.S. and British
arms, could halt it. The Soviet resurgence at
Stalingrad from Nov. 1942 to Feb. 1943 marked
the turning point in a long battle, ending in the
final offensive of Jan. 1945. Then, after
denouncing a 1941 nonaggression pact with
Japan in April 1945, when Allied forces were
nearing victory in the Pacific, the Soviet Union
declared war on Japan on Aug. 8, 1945, and
quickly occupied Manchuria, Karafuto, and the
Kuril Islands.
The Berlin Blockade and the Cold War

After the war, the Soviet Union, United States,

Great Britain, and France divided Berlin and
Germany into four zones of occupation, which
led to immediate antagonism between the Soviet
and Western powers, culminating in the Berlin
blockade in 1948. The USSR's tightening control
over a cordon of Communist states, running from
Poland in the north to Albania in the south, was
dubbed the iron curtain by Churchill and would
later lead to the Warsaw Pact. It marked the
beginning of the cold war, the simmering hostility
that pitted the world's two superpowers, the U.S.
and the USSRand their competing political
ideologiesagainst each other for the next 45
years. Stalin died on March 6, 1953.
The new power emerging in the Kremlin was
Nikita S. Khrushchev (19581964), first secretary
of the party. Khrushchev formalized the eastern
European system into a Council for Mutual
Economic Assistance (Comecon) and a Warsaw
Pact Treaty Organization as a counterweight to
NATO. The Soviet Union exploded a hydrogen
bomb in 1953, developed an intercontinental
ballistic missile by 1957, sent the first satellite
into space (Sputnik I) in 1957, and put Yuri
Gagarin in the first orbital flight around Earth in
1961. Khrushchev's downfall stemmed from his
decision to place Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba
and then, when challenged by the U.S., backing

down and removing the weapons. He was also

blamed for the ideological break with China after
1963. Khrushchev was forced into retirement on
Oct. 15, 1964, and was replaced by Leonid I.
Brezhnev as first secretary of the party and
Aleksei N. Kosygin as premier.
U.S. president Jimmy Carter and Brezhnev
signed the SALT II treaty in Vienna on June 18,
1979, setting ceilings on each nation's arsenal of
intercontinental ballistic missiles. The U.S.
Senate refused to ratify the treaty because of the
invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet troops on Dec.
27, 1979. On Nov. 10, 1982, Leonid Brezhnev
died. Yuri V. Andropov, who had formerly
headed the KGB, became his successor but died
less than two years later, in Feb. 1984.
Konstantin U. Chernenko, a 72-year-old party
stalwart who had been close to Brezhnev,
succeeded him. After 13 months in office,
Chernenko died on March 10, 1985. Chosen to
succeed him as Soviet leader was Mikhail S.
Gorbachev, who led the Soviet Union in its longawaited shift to a new generation of leadership.
Unlike his immediate predecessors, Gorbachev
did not also assume the title of president but
wielded power from the post of party general
secretary.
Gorbachev introduced sweeping political and
economic reforms, bringing glasnost and
perestroika, openness and restructuring, to
the Soviet system. He established much warmer
relations with the West, ended the Soviet
occupation of Afghanistan, and announced that
the Warsaw Pact countries were free to pursue
their own political agendas. Gorbachev's
revolutionary steps ushered in the end of the
cold war, and in 1990 he was awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize for his contributions to ending the
45-year conflict between East and West.
The Soviet Union took much criticism in early
1986 over the April 24 meltdown at the
Chernobyl nuclear plant and its reluctance to
give out any information on the accident.
Dissolution of the USSR

Gorbachev's promised reforms began to falter,

and he soon had a formidable political opponent
agitating for even more radical restructuring.
Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian SSR,
began challenging the authority of the federal

government and resigned from the Communist

Party along with other dissenters in 1990. On
Aug. 29, 1991, an attempted coup d'tat against
Gorbachev was orchestrated by a group of hardliners. Yeltsin's defiant actions during the
couphe barricaded himself in the Russian
parliament and called for national
strikesresulted in Gorbachev's reinstatement.
But from then on, power had effectively shifted
from Gorbachev to Yeltsin and away from
centralized power to greater power for the
individual Soviet republics. In his last months as
the head of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev
dissolved the Communist Party and proposed
the formation of the Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS), which, when
implemented, gave most of the Soviet Socialist
Republics their independence, binding them
together in a loose, primarily economic
federation. Russia and ten other former Soviet
republics joined the CIS on Dec. 21, 1991.
Gorbachev resigned on Dec. 25, and Yeltsin,
who had been the driving force behind the Soviet
dissolution, became president of the newly
established Russian Republic.
At the start of 1992, Russia embarked on a
series of dramatic economic reforms, including
the freeing of prices on most goods, which led to
an immediate downturn. A national referendum
on confidence in Yeltsin and his economic
program took place in April 1993. To the surprise
of many, the president and his shock-therapy
program won by a resounding margin. In
September, Yeltsin dissolved the legislative
bodies left over from the Soviet era.
The president of the southern republic of
Chechnya accelerated his region's drive for
independence in 1994. In December, Russian
troops closed the borders and sought to squelch
the independence drive. The Russian military
forces met firm and costly resistance. In May
1997, the two-year war formally ended with the
signing of a peace treaty that adroitly avoided the
issue of Chechen independence.
Financial Crisis, Political Upheaval, and Putin's Rise to
Power

In March 1998 Yeltsin dismissed his entire

government and replaced Prime Minister Viktor
Chernomyrdin with fuel and energy minister
Sergei Kiriyenko. On Aug. 28, 1998, amid the

Russian stock market's free fall, the Russian

government halted trading of the ruble on
international currency markets. This financial
crisis led to a long-term economic downturn and
political upheaval. Yeltsin then sacked Kiriyenko
and reappointed Chernomyrdin. The Duma
rejected Chernomyrdin and on Sept. 11 elected
foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov as prime
minister. The repercussions of Russia's financial
emergency were felt throughout the
Commonwealth of Independent States.
Impatient with Yeltsin's increasingly erratic
behavior, the Duma attempted to impeach him in
May 1999. But the impeachment motion was
quickly quashed and soon Yeltsin was on the
ascendancy again. In keeping with his capricious
style, Yeltsin dismissed Primakov and
substituted Interior Minister Sergei Stepashin.
Just three months later, however, Yeltsin ousted
Stepashin and replaced him with Vladimir Putin
on Aug. 9, 1999, announcing that in addition to
serving as prime minister, the former KGB agent
was his choice as a successor in the 2000
presidential election. That same year the former
Russian satellites of Poland, Hungary, and the
Czech Republic joined NATO, raising Russia's
hackles. The desire of Lithuania, Latvia, and
Estonia, all of which were once part of the Soviet
Union, to join the organization in the future
further antagonized Russia.
Just three years after the bloody 19941996
Chechen-Russian war ended in devastation and
stalemate, the fighting started again in 1999, with
Russia launching air strikes and following up with
ground troops. By the end of November, Russian
troops had surrounded Chechnya's capital,
Grozny, and about 215,000 Chechen refugees
had fled to neighboring Ingushetia. Russia
maintained that a political solution was
impossible until Islamic militants in Chechnya
had been vanquished.
In a decision that took Russia and the world by
surprise, Boris Yeltsin resigned on Dec. 31,
1999, and Vladimir Putin became the acting
president. Two months later, after almost five
months of fighting, Russian troops captured
Grozny. It was a political as well as a military
victory for Putin, whose hard-line stance against
Chechnya greatly contributed to his political
popularity.

On March 26, 2000, Putin won the presidential

election with about 53% of the vote. Putin moved
to centralize power in Moscow and attempted to
limit the power and influence of both the regional
governors and wealthy business leaders.
Although Russia remained economically
stagnant, Putin brought his nation a measure of
political stability it never had under the mercurial
and erratic Yeltsin. In Aug. 2000 the Russian
government was severely criticized for its
handling of the Kursk disaster, a nuclear
submarine accident that left 118 sailors dead.
Russia was initially alarmed in 2001 when the
U.S. announced its rejection of the Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty of 1972, which for 30 years had
been viewed as a crucial force in keeping the
nuclear arms race under control. But Putin was
eventually placated by President George W.
Bush's reassurances, and in May 2002, the U.S.
and Russian leaders announced a landmark pact
to cut both countries' nuclear arsenals by up to
two-thirds over the next ten years.
On Oct. 23, 2002, Chechen rebels seized a
crowded Moscow theater and detained 763
people, including 3 Americans. Armed and wired
with explosives, the rebels demanded that the
Russian government end the war in Chechnya.
Government forces stormed the theater the next
day, after releasing a gas into the theater that
killed not only all the rebels but more than 100
hostages.
In March 2003, Chechens voted in a referendum
that approved a new regional constitution making
Chechnya a separatist republic within Russia.
Agreeing to the constitution meant abandoning
claims for complete independence, and the new
powers accorded the republic were little more
than cosmetic. During 2003, there were 11 bomb
attacks against Russia that were believed to
have been orchestrated by Chechen rebels.
Putin was reelected president in March 2004,
with 70% of the vote. International election
observers considered the process less than
democratic.
A Shocking Hostage Situation, a Move Towards
Climate Change, and Radiation Poison

In April 2003 reformist politician Sergei

Yushenkov became the third outspoken critic of
the Kremlin to be assassinated in five years. Just

hours before he was gunned down, Yushenkov

had officially registered his new political party,
Liberal Russia. In Nov. 2003, billionaire Mikhail
Khodorkovsky, president of the Yukos oil
company, was arrested on charges of fraud and
tax evasion. Khodorkovsky supported liberal
opposition parties, which led many to suspect
that President Putin may have engineered his
arrest. On May 31, 2005, Khodorkovsky was
sentenced to nine years in prison.
On Sept. 13, 2004, dozens of heavily armed
guerrillas seized a school in Beslan, near
Chechnya, and held about 1,100 young
schoolchildren, teachers, and parents hostage.
Hundreds of hostages were killed, including
about 156 children. Chechen warlord Shamil
Basayev claimed responsibility. In the aftermath
of the horrific attack, Putin announced that he
would radically restructure the government to
fight terrorism more effectively. The world
community expressed deep concern that Putin's
plans would consolidate his power and roll back
democracy in Russia.
In Sept. 2004, Russia endorsed the Kyoto
Protocol on climate change. It was the final
endorsement needed to put the protocol into
effect worldwide.
Former Chechen president and rebel leader
Aslan Maskhadov was killed by Russian special
forces on March 8, 2005. Putin hailed it as a
victory in his fight against terrorism. An even
greater victory occurred in July 2006, when
Russia announced the killing of Chechen warlord
Shamil Basayev, responsible for the horrific
Beslan terrorist attack. In Feb. 2007, Putin
dismissed the president of Chechnya, Alu
Alkhanov, and appointed Ramzan Kadyrov, a
security official and the son of former Chechen
president Akhmad, who was killed by rebels in
2004. Ramzan Kadyrov and forces loyal to him
have been linked to human-rights abuses in the
troubled region.
Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB agent who
has been critical of the Kremlin, died from
poisoning by a radioactive substance in
November 2006. On his deathbed in a London
hospital, he accused Putin of masterminding his
murder. In July 2007, Moscow refused the British
government's request to extradite Andrei

Lugovoi, another former KGB agent who British

authorities have accused in Litvinenko's murder.
Crumbling Relations with the United States and
Conflict with Georgia

The International Olympic Committee announced

in July 2007 that Sochi, Russia, a Black Sea
resort, will host the Winter Games in 2014. It will
be the first time Russia or the former Soviet
Union hosts the Winter Games. That same
month, President Putin announced that Russia
will suspend the 1990 Conventional Forces in
Europe treaty, which limits conventional
weapons in Europe. Several U.S. officials
speculated that Putin was acting in response to
U.S. plans to build a missile shield in Europea
move stongly opposed by Russia. The move
provided further evidence of deteriorating
relations between the United States and Russia.
In Sept., Putin nominated Viktor Zubkov, a close
ally, as prime minister. The Duma, the lower
house of Parliament, confirmed the nomination.
Putin announced in October that he would head
the list of candidates on the United Russia ticket,
the country's leading political party. Such a move
would pave the way for Putin to become prime
minister, and thus allow him to retain power. In
December parliamentary elections, United
Russia won in a landslide, taking 64.1% of the
vote, far ahead of the Communist Party of
Russia, which took 11.6%. Opposition parties
complained that the election was rigged, and
European monitors said the vote wasn't fair.
Putin used his sway over the media to stifle the
opposition and campaign for United Russia,
making the election a referendum on his
popularity. Opposition leader and former chess
champion Garry Kasparov said the election was
"the most unfair and dirtiest in the whole history
of modern Russia."
In Dec., Putin endorsed Dmitri Medvedev in the
presidential election scheduled for March 2008.
A Putin loyalist who is said to be moderate and
pro-Western, Medvedev is a first deputy prime
minister and the chairman of Gazprom, the
country's oil monopoly. He has never worked in
intelligence or security agencies, unlike Putin
and many members of his administration.
Medvedev said that if elected, he would appoint
Putin as prime minister. Medvedev won the
presidential election with 67% of the vote. Putin

said he would serve as Medvedev's prime

minister and indicated that he will increase the
responsibilities of the position. Although
Medvedev vowed to restore stability to Russia
after the 1990s turmoil, significant change in the
government is not expected.
On April 15, 2008, Putin was chosen as
chairman of the United Russia party and agreed
to become prime minister when Dmitri Medvedev
assumed the presidency in May. On May 6,
2008, Dmitry Medvedev was sworn in as
president, and Putin became prime minister days
later. Although Medvedev assumed the
presidency, Putin clearly remained in control of
the government and signaled that the
premiership would gain broad authority. In
assembling a cabinet, Putin called on several
members of his former administration.
In Aug. 2008, fighting broke out between Georgia
and its two breakaway regions, South Ossetia
and Abkhazia. Russia sent hundreds of troops to
support the enclaves, and also launched
airstrikes and occupied the Georgian city of Gori.
Observers speculated that Russia's aggressive
tactics marked an attempt to gain control of
Georgia's oil and gas export routes. By the end
of Aug., after a cease-fire agreement between
Russia and Georgia was signed, Medvedev
severed diplomatic ties with Georgia, officially
recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as
independent regions, and pledged military
assistance from Russia. The move heightened
tensions between Russia and the West.
Both Russia and Georgia have painted each
other as the aggressor responsible for the
warGeorgia said it launched an attack in South
Ossetia because a Russian invasion was under
way, and Russia claimed it sent troops to the
breakaway region to protect civilians from
Georgia's offensive attack. In November 2008,
Erosi Kitsmarishvili, a former Georgian diplomat
to Moscow, testified that the Georgian
government was responsible for starting the
conflict with Russia. Kitsmarishvili stated that
Georgian officials told him in April that they
planned to start a war in the breakaway regions
and were supported by the U.S. government.
A dispute over debts and pricing of gas supplies
between Russia and Ukraine led Gazprom, the
major Russian gas supplier, to halt its gas

exports to Europe via Ukraine for two weeks in

January 2009, affecting at least ten EU
countries. About 80% of Russian gas exports to
Europe are pumped through Ukraine. Russia and
Ukraine blamed each other for the disruption to
Europe's energy supply.
String of Suicide Bombs Sparks Fear of a Crackdown
by Putin

On March 24, 2010, the United States and

Russia reported a breakthrough in arms-control
negotiations. Both countries agreed to lower the
limit on deployed strategic warheads and
launchers by 25% and 50%, respectively, and
also to implement a new inspection regime.
President Obama and President Medvedev
signed the treaty that outlines this agreement on
April 8 in Prague. The U.S. Senate ratified the
treaty, called New Start, in December.
Two female suicide bombers, acting just minutes
apart, detonated bombs in two Moscow subways
stations, killing at least 39 people in March 2010.
It was the first terrorist attack in the capital city
since 2004, when Moscow experienced a string
of deadly violence. Doku Umarov, a former
Chechen separatist and the self-proclaimed emir
of the north Caucasus, claimed responsibility for
masterminding the attack. Two days later, two
explosions killed 12 people in the north
Caucasus region of Dagestan. The attacks
prompted concern that Prime Minister Putin
would crack down on civil liberties and
democracy as he did in 2004, following the siege
of a school in Beslan.
In June 2010, the FBI announced it had
infiltrated a Russian spy ring that had agents
operating undercover in several cities in the
United States. Ten people were arrested and
charged with espionage. By most accounts, their
attempts to collect policy information were largely
ineffective and clumsy, and any material they
managed to gather was readily available on the
Internet. Days later, the U.S. and Russia
completed a prisoner exchange, with 12
suspected spies deported to Russia and four
men accused of spying on the West were sent to
the United States.

Protests and Unrest Surrounds the 2012 Presidential

Election

In Sept. 2011, Putin announced that he would

run for president as the candidate of the United
Russia party in March 2012 elections. In a deal
that was reportedly struck two years ago, Putin
and President Medvedev would swap positions,
with Medvedev assuming the role as head of the
party and thus becoming prime minister. Putin
was all but assured to sweep the election and
serve another six years as president. The
announcement confirmed the widely held
assumption that Putin ran the country. Putin
announced his plans for the Eurasian Union that
same month. The new union would include
countries that were formerly part of the Soviet
Union.
The Dec. 2011 parliamentary elections sparked
protests, mainly from middle-class Russians.
International and local monitors condemned the
election as fraudulent. United Russia, the party
led by Putin, came out on top in the elections,
receiving nearly 50 percent of the vote, but they
lost 77 seats. Monitors said that United Russia
would have lost more seats were it not for ballotbox stuffing and voting irregularities. The height
of the protests came on Dec. 10, when over
40,000 Russians rallied near the Kremlin. It was
the largest anti-Kremlin protest since the early
1990s. The activists called for Putin's resignation
and denounced the election results. Three
minority parties in Parliament also complained
about the election's outcome, but they were all at
odds over what to do about it. President
Medvedev called for an inquiry into the election
fraud. Meanwhile, Putin accused the United
States, singling out Secretary of State Hillary
Rodham Clinton, for instigating the
demonstrations when she criticized conduct
during the parliamentary elections.
On Dec. 12, billionaire industrialist Mikhail D.
Porkhorov announced that he planned to run for
president against Putin in 2012. Porkhorov owns
many businesses in Russia as well as the New
Jersey Nets, the NBA franchise, in the United
States. In his announcement, Porkhorov said, "I
made a decision, probably the most serious
decision in my life: I am going to the presidential
election." Many observers questioned if
Porkhorov was truly challenging Putin or if he

had Putin's approval to run to create an air of

legitimacy to the race.
On March 4, 2012, Vladimir Putin won the
presidential election, claiming 64% of the vote.
The following day, observers from the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe challenged the election, saying Putin
won because he had no competition and
government spending at his disposal. The United
States and the European Union called for an
investigation into fraud allegations. Meanwhile,
thousands of demonstrators in Moscow took to
the streets, chanting, "Russia without Putin." A
similar demonstration happened in St.
Petersburg. When protestors refused to leave,
police arrested them. In Moscow, 250 people
were arrested. In St. Petersburg, 300
demonstrators were detained. Inspired by the
protests against Putin, about 200 young
Muscovites ran as independent candidates in
municipal March 2012 elections. More than 70 of
them won spots on district councils. Even with
Putin's supporters occupying many of the other
council seats, the elections were a sign that the
protests had made an impact in the political
system and, perhaps, would continue to do so.
In May of 2012 as Putin prepared to take office
for a third time as president, demonstrations
turned violent. The day before the inauguration,
20,000 antigovernment demonstrators fought
with police near the Kremlin. The fighting
included smoke bombs, bottles, and sticks. The
following day, while Putin officially took office, the
protests continued and police arrested 120
people. Even though antigovernment protests
have been going on for months, the
demonstrations had been peaceful until now.
The violence was a dramatic shift. Dressed in riot
gear, police searched cafes and restaurants for
protesters. The demonstrators taken into police
custody were sent to military draft offices. Right
after Putin was sworn in as president, he
nominated Medvedev as Russia's prime minister.
On June 8, 2012, Putin signed a law imposing a
huge fine on organizers of protests as well as
people who take part in them. The law gives
Russian authorities the power to crackdown on
the anti-government protests which started
months ago when Putin announced his decision
to run again for President. Four days later,
10,000 protesters took to the Moscow streets in

response to the new law. The fine for those

marching in protests was set at $9,000, a steep
penalty considering the average yearly salary in
Russia is $8,500. For organizers of
demonstrations, the fine was set at $18,000.
Russia Blocks U.N. Action in Syria

In Feb. 2012, Russia made international

headlines by blocking an effort by the United
Nations Security Council to end the violence in
Syria. Russia, along with China, vetoed the
resolution just hours after the Syrian military
launched an assault on the city of Homs. The
Security Council voted 13 to 2 for a resolution
backing an Arab League peace plan for Syria.
Russia and China voted against the resolution,
seeing it as a violation of Syria's sovereignty.
Russia also continued to provide weapons to
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as well as
diplomatic support. Syria's 11-month uprising
has caused more than 5,000 casualties.
Also in Feb. 2012, President Medvedev awarded
Syrian writer and poet Ali Ukla Ursan a Pushkin
Medal. Ursan was one of 11 foreigners honored
for their close ties with Russia. Ursan, an adviser
to the Syrian Writers Union, has publicly
expressed anti-Semitic opinions and praised the
Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
On July 19, 2012, Russia and China vetoed a
United Nations Security Council resolution to
impose sanctions on the Syrian government. The
proposed U.N. sanctions were intended to push
Syria into putting a peace plan into action and
ending its 17-month-old conflict. The resolution
was proposed by Britain and backed by ten other
council members, including France and the
United States. Russian ambassador Vitaly I.
Churkin explained the Russian veto to the
council, "We simply cannot accept a document
which would open the path for pressure of
sanctions and further to external military
involvement in Syrian domestic affairs."
New Laws Passed against Political Activists, Pussy
Riot Arrested

During the summer of 2012, the government

began cracking down against political activists in
new ways. Two new laws were signed by Putin.
One law gave the government the power to shut
down websites that have content which could be
harmful to children. The other law increased

penalties for libel. In July 2012, the Investigative

Committee began criminal cases against Aleksei
Navalny, an anticorruption blogger, and Gennady
Gudkov, a lawmaker. Navalny, a leader of the
anti-Putin protest movement which began in Dec.
2011, was found guilty of embezzlement and
faced five to 10 years in prison.
Also in July 2012, three members of a Russian
punk band called Pussy Riot were arrested and
put on trial for hooliganism after they performed
an anti-Putin song on the altar of Moscow's main
Orthodox cathedral. During one of the most highprofile trials that Russia's had in years, the band
members said their demonstration was political,
not an attack on Orthodox Christians. Masha,
Katya, and Nadya, the three members of Pussy
Riot, were convicted of hooliganism on Aug. 17,
2012, and sentenced to two years in a penal
colony. At the sentencing, activists outside of the
courthouse began to protest, chanting "Free
Pussy Riot!" Police arrested dozens of
protestors. Rallies supporting the three women
were held in cities around the world, including
London, New York and Paris. Immediately
following the verdict, the United States, other
governments, and human rights groups criticized
the decision, calling the sentence severe.
On Oct. 10, 2012, a court in Moscow freed one
of the three members of Pussy Riot, the punk
band convicted of hooliganism for protesting in a
cathedral last February. Yekaterina Samutsevich
was released after judges accepted her new
lawyer's argument that she played less of a role
in the cathedral protest performance that landed
her in jail with her band mates. More than a year
later, President Putin announced that the two
members of Pussy Riot who were still in jail
would be released under an amnesty in Dec.
2013. Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, age 24, and
Maria Alyokhina, age 25, would be released, in
part, because they are both mothers to young
children.
On Oct. 19, 2012, Leonid Razvozzhayev, a
Russian opposition leader, disappeared from
Kiev, Ukraine. According to an interview with The
New Times magazine, published on October 24,
he was held for three days by men threatening to
kill his children if he did not sign a confession.
Razvozzhayev was in Kiev seeking advice on
political asylum from the United Nations office
there. He was held in a house and not allowed to

eat or drink for three days. Once he signed the

confession, his kidnappers turned him over to
authorities in Moscow.
Russian authorities charged Razvozzhayev and
other opposition figures with plotting riots and
seeking aid from Georgia in order to overthrow
Putin's government. Vladimir Markin, a
spokesman for Russian federal investigators,
said that Razvozzhayev turned himself in to the
authorities in Moscow and, at the time, he did not
speak of any "torture, abduction or any other
unlawful actions." Markin said investigators
would look into the claim of a forced signed
confession.
Russia Joins World Trade Organization while at Odds
with U.S. over Weapons Pact, Snowden, and Syria

After 19 years of negotiations, Russia became

the newest member of the World Trade
Organization on Aug. 22, 2012. Russia has cut
tariffs on imports and set limits on export duties
as part of a series of reforms enacted to qualify
for entry into the international trading arena.
Expectations of membership include an increase
of 3% in the Russian GDP, more foreign
investment, and a doubling of U.S. exports to
Russiaas long as trade relations are
normalized through the lifting of the 1974
Jackson-Vanik amendment.
On Oct. 10, 2012, the Russian government
announced it would not renew the Nunn-Lugar
Cooperative Threat Reduction Program with the
United States when the agreement expires in the
spring of 2013. The agreement was part of a
successful 20-year partnership between Russia
and the United States. It eliminated nuclear and
chemical weapons from the former Soviet Union
and protected against the threat of nuclear war.
For example, as part of the agreement, 7,600
nuclear warheads were deactivated and all
nuclear weapons were removed from former
Soviet territories such as Belarus, Kazakhstan,
and Ukraine.
Russian officials explained that their country's
economy had improved since the agreement. In
a statement, Russia's Foreign Ministry said that it
had increased its budget allocation "in the field of
disarmament." The statement went on to say,
"American partners know that their proposal is
not consistent with our ideas about what forms
and on what basis further cooperation should be

built." The statement left open the possibility of a

new agreement with the United States, but no
specific conditions of a new agreement were
given.
In early July 2013, Fugitive American intelligence
contractor, Edward Snowden, asked international
human rights organizations to help him receive
asylum in Russia. Snowden had been seeking
refuge at an international transit zone at
Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport since June
2013. When he first arrived at the Russian
airport, he expressed a desire for asylum in
Russia. President Putin responded by saying
that Snowden could stay in Russia only if he
ceased "his work aimed at inflicting damage on
our American partners." Meanwhile, the United
States made diplomatic moves to prevent
Snowden from receiving permanent asylum in
Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, the three
Latin American governments that have stated
they would take him.
Snowden filed a temporary asylum request after
more than three weeks at the airport in
Sheremetyevo on July 17, 2013. After the
request was filed, Putin would not say whether or
not Russia would grant Snowden's request.
Instead, Putin reiterated that Snowden must do
no further harm to the United States. The
following week, while Edward Snowden still
waited on approval of his temporary asylum
request, U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder
Jr., attempted to dissuade Russia from granting
the asylum. Holder wrote in a letter to Russian
Justice Minister Alexander Konovalov that
Snowden would not face torture or the death
penalty should he be returned to the United
States to face charges of espionage. Despite
these efforts, on Aug. 1, 2013, Russia granted
Snowden asylum for one year. The temporary
asylum allowed him to leave the Moscow airport
where he had been since June. Russia granted
Snowden asylum despite strong urging from the
U.S. not to do so. In response, President Obama
canceled a planned summit meeting with Putin
which was to be held in Moscow in September.
On Sept. 9, 2013, U.S. secretary of state John
Kerry suggested half-heartedly that a strike on
Syria could be averted if Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad agreed to hand over all chemical
weapons. Russia took the proposal seriously,
and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said,

"If the establishment of international control over

chemical weapons in the country will prevent
attacks, then we will immediately begin work with
Damascus. And we call on the Syrian leadership
to not only agree to setting the chemical
weapons storage sites under international
control, but also to their subsequent destruction."
Syrian foreign minister Walid al-Moallem also
embraced the option. "We are ready to reveal
the locations of the chemical weapon sites and to
stop producing chemical weapons and make
these sites available for inspection by
representatives of Russia, other countries and
the United Nations," he said in a statement on
Sept. 12. It was the first time the Syrian
government acknowledged it had chemical
weapons. Given the uncertainty of Congressional
authorization, diplomacy would spare Obama a
potential rebuke that could undercut his authority
for the remainder of his presidency.
Russia and the U.S. reached an agreement on
Sept. 15 that said Syria must provide an
inventory of its chemicals weapons and
production facilities within a week and either turn
over or destroy all of its chemical weapons by
mid-2014. If the government fails to comply, then
the UN Security Council would take up the issue.
The timetable is extremely aggressive; such
disarmament typically takes years, not months.
While the agreement delayed a Congressional
vote on a military strike, the U.S. kept that
possibility on the table. "If diplomacy fails, the
United States remains prepared to act," Obama
said.
On Sept. 16, the UN confirmed in a report that
the chemical agent sarin had been used near
Damascus on Aug. 21. "Chemical weapons have
been used in the ongoing conflict between the
parties in the Syrian Arab Republic, also against
civilians, including children, on a relatively large
scale," the report said. "The environmental,
chemical and medical samples we have
collected provide clear and convincing evidence
that surface-to-surface rockets containing the
nerve agent sarin were used." The report did not
indicate who was responsible for launching the
attack. Two days later, Russia denounced the
UN's report, calling it incomplete. In a statement
broadcast on Russian television, Deputy Foreign
Minister Sergei A. Ryabkov said, "We think that
the report was distorted. It was one-sided. The

basis of information upon which it is built is

insufficient."
International Protests and Multiple Bombings Threaten
2014 Olympics

During the summer of 2013, Russia's State

Duma passed an anti-gay bill with a 436-0 vote.
Backed by the Kremlin, the legislation banned
the "propaganda of nontraditional sexual
relations." The language of the bill was vague,
but it was seen by the international community
as an effort to crack down on homosexuality.
While the State Duma, or lower house, voted on
the bill, more than two dozen protestors were
attacked by anti-gay demonstrators and then
arrested by police in Moscow. Russian President
Vladimir Putin signed the law in July. The law
included a large fine for holding gay pride rallies
or for giving any LGBT information to minors.
Those caught breaking the new law could be
arrested. Foreigners could be deported.
Throughout July and Aug. 2013, Russia's antigay bill sparked international protest and
outrage. Athletes throughout the world
threatened to boycott the 2014 Olympics in
protest. The International Olympic Committee
began probing Russia to see how the country
would enforce the law during the Olympics. In an
effort to do damage control over the controversy,
the International Olympic Committee said by late
July that it had "received assurances from the
highest level of government in Russia that the
legislation will not affect those attending or taking
part in the Games." Meanwhile, FIFA reported
that it was also seeking out "clarification and
more details" about the new anti-gay law from
Russia, which would host the 2018 World Cup.
On Sunday, Dec. 29, 2013, at least sixteen
people were killed in a suicide bombing at a
railroad station in Volgograd, a city in southern
Russia. Nearly three dozen others were
wounded. The following day another suicide
bombing took place on a trolley bus in the same
city. At least ten people were killed and ten
others were wounded. Both explosions came just
six weeks before the Winter Olympics were
being held in Sochi, 400 miles away from
Volgograd. Never has a host country
experienced this level of violent terrorism so
close to the Olympic Games. President Putin
vowed to double security in all of Russia's

railway stations and airports. During the

Olympics, the government has planned for more
than 40,000 law enforcement officials to be on
hand at the event.
In Jan. 2014, another bomb exploded and
suspicious deaths occurred in the Stavropol
territory, which borders the province where the
Winter Olympics will be held. A vehicle exploded
on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2014. One person was in
the car at the time of the explosion. Two other
bodies were found nearby. The following day,
explosive material was found in another vehicle
along with the bodies of three men. Russian
authorities began an investigation into all six
deaths.
Despite threats of terrorist attacks, complaints
about poor preparations, and the international
condemnation over their anti-gay law, Russia
kicked off the costliest Olympic Games in history
on Feb. 7, 2014, with an opening ceremony filled
with music, floats and a light show using the
most advanced technology available. While the
games were originally estimated to cost $12
billion, that number has risen to $50 billion. The
opening ceremony was mostly glitch free,
although one of the five floating Olympic rings
failed to open. Russian President Vladimir Putin
attended and officially announced the start of the
games during the ceremony. On the same day
as the opening ceremony, a passenger on a
Turkish jetliner told the crew that a bomb was on
board and to fly the plane to Sochi. Instead, the
crew landed in Istanbul. The suspect was taken
into custody and no bomb was found.
Meanwhile, the United States government
banned all liquids, gels, aerosols and powders in
carry-on luggage for flights to and from Russia.
The ban came after the U.S. issued a warning
that explosive material could be concealed in
toothpaste tubes.
On Feb. 23, 2014, the Sochi Winter Games
closed with an impressive ceremony, including
Russia poking fun at its five floating ring opening
ceremony malfunction. Despite the controversies
and terror threats, the Sochi Games were
incident free and considered a success. Russia
led the medal count with 33, following by the
United States with 28, and Norway with 26.

Russia Annexes Crimea, Experiences Economic

Fallout Due to Sanctions

On March 1, 2014, Russian president Vladimir

Putin dispatched troops to Crimea, citing the
need to protect Russians from extremist
ultranationalists, referring to the anti-government
protesters in Kiev. The Russian troops
surrounded Ukrainian military bases, and by
March 3, Russia was reportedly in control of
Crimea. The move sparked international outrage
and condemnation just days after Russia
successfully hosted the 2014 Winter Olympics in
Sochi. President Obama called the move a
"breach of international law."
In a press conference on March 4, Putin said he
didn't see an immediate reason to initiate a
military conflict, but Russia "reserves the right to
use all means at our disposal to protect" Russian
citizens and ethnic Russians in the region. Two
days later, the U.S. imposed sanctions on
officials, advisers, and other individuals who
have been involved in the undermining of
democracy in the Crimea. The sanctions
involved revoking visas for travel to the U.S. for
those who hold them and refusing visas for those
seeking them. On the same day, the Crimean
Parliament approved a referendum, scheduled
for March 16, asking voters if they want to
secede from Ukraine and be annexed by Russia.
Nearly 97% of voters in Crimea chose to secede
from Ukraine in the referendum on March 16,
2014. The next day, the Crimean Parliament
declared the region independent and formally
sought annexation by Russia. In a statement
from the Kremlin, Putin said, "The referendum
was organized in such a way as to guarantee
Crimea's population the possibility to freely
express their will and exercise their right to selfdetermination." Obama told Putin that neither the
U.S. nor the international community would
recognize the results of the referendum. He said
the referendum "violates the Ukrainian
Constitution and occurred under duress of
Russian military intervention." On March 17,
Obama imposed economic sanctions on 11
Russian officials and Putin advisers, including
Crimean prime minister Sergey Aksyonov, who
were "responsible for the deteriorating situation
in Ukraine." The sanctions froze the assets held
in the U.S. and banned Americans from doing
business with those sanctioned.

On March 18, Putin signed a treaty stating that

Russia had annexed Crimea, reclaiming territory
that was part of Russia from 1783, when
Empress Catherine II took it over from the
Ottoman Empire, to 1954 when Nikita
Khrushchev transferred the region to Ukraine.
After signing the treaty, Putin gave a speech that
both defended his move, denounced
internationally as a land grab, and lashed out at
the West. "Our Western partners have crossed a
line," he said, referring to the West's support for
Kiev. "We have every reason to think that the
notorious policy of confining Russia, pursued in
the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, continues
today."
The move certainly jeopardized Russia's
relationship with the U.S. and Europe, and
complicated any hopes for a peace agreement in
Syria and cast a cloud over the talks over Iran's
nuclear program. Neither the U.S. nor the
European Union recognized Crimea as part of
Russia. The members of the Group of 8
industrialized nations announced on March 24
that they had suspended Russia from the group
and moved the upcoming meeting from Sochi,
Russia, to Brussels. The UN General Assembly
passed a resolution on March 27 that declared
Russia's annexation of Crimea illegal and
described the referendum on the issue as
"having no validity." One hundred countries
voted in favor, 11 voted against, and 58
abstained. The resolution has no enforcement
power, making it symbolic. Nonetheless, it clearly
sent Putin a message.
After annexation, Putin continued to deploy as
many as 40,000 Russian troops on the southern
and eastern border with Ukraine, areas that are
dominated by ethnic Russians, raising fears that
he may attempt to take over additional regions of
the country. Those fears were realized in early
April, when pro-Russian protesters and armed
militants in the eastern cities of Donetsk, Kharkiv,
Luhansk, and Mariupol took over several
government buildings and police stations. On
April 17, 2014, in Geneva, representatives from
the U.S., Russia, Ukraine, and the European
Union reached an agreement intended to deescalate the tension in eastern Ukraine. The
agreement stated that all illegal armed groups
will lay down their arms and all buildings seized
illegally will be surrendered. Both sides agreed to
end the violence and intolerance, with anti-

Semitism being singled out. However, Russia did

not commit to withdrawing the 40,000 troops it
has massed on the Ukrainian border.
In response to Russia's refusal to comply with
the agreement reached in Geneva to rein in the
pro-Russian groups, the U.S. imposed additional
sanctions in late April on seven Russian
individuals, including Igor Sechin, the head of
Russia's largest oil producer, and 17 companies
with close ties to Putin, targeting some of the
country's wealthiest and most powerful
businessmen. The sanctions, announced on
April 28, put a travel ban on the individuals and
froze the assets of the officials and the
businesses. They also restricted the import of
U.S. goods that could be used for military
purposes. The European followed with similar
sanctions and the U.S. added more sanctions at
the end of the year. The sanctions took a toll on
Russia's economy. Standard & Poor's
downgraded Russia's credit rating, leaving it just
one notch above junk status, investors withdrew
about $50 billion from the country, and the stock
market fell 13% in 2014.
Putin Signs Gas Accord with China, Begins Eurasian
Union as Ukraine Fallout Continues

After a decade of discussion, Russia's Gazprom

signed a deal to sell natural gas to China's
National Petroleum Corporation in May 2014.
The deal was a $400 billion, 30-year supply
contract for 38 billion cubic meters of gas per
year. The supply would start in 2018. The fuel
would come from a new pipeline in eastern
Siberia. By 2014, China consumed about 4% of
the world's gas, but about half of the world's iron
ore, coal, and copper. However, China was on its
way to being the world's biggest gas user by
2035. That same month, Putin launched an
Eurasian Union. Kazakhstan and Belarus joined
Russia in the new economic alliance that hoped
to one day rival the European Union. With a
combined $2.7 trillion gross domestic product
between the three countries, the union has
promise. However, the fallout from recent events
in Ukraine, which had been expected to be a part
of the new bloc, could hurt the union and prevent
it from growing to the same level as the
European Union.
As the fighting and chaos escalated in eastern
Ukraine and the U.S. and Europe threatened

additional sanctions, on May 7, Putin announced

the withdrawal of the 40,000 troops from the
border with Ukraine, urged separatists to
abandon plans for a referendum on autonomy,
and said Russia would participate in negotiations
to end the crisis. "I simply believe that if we want
to find a long-term solution to the crisis in
Ukraine, open, honest, and equal dialogue is the
only possible option," Putin said. Both the U.S.
and European officials responded with a heavy
dose of skepticism that Putin would follow
through.
A Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 crashed in
eastern Ukraine near the Russian border on July
17, killing all 298 passengers and crew
members. The crash occurred in territory where
pro-Russian separatists have been battling
Ukrainian troops. Ukrainian, European, and
American officials said the plane was shot down
by a Russian-made surface-to-air missile, citing
satellite images. President Putin denied having
any role in the disaster. Most analysts said
rebels may have thought they were targeting a
military transport plane rather than a commercial
jet. A day before the crash, the U.S. imposed
further sanctions on Russia in response to
Putin's refusal to stop arming the separatists.
In late July 2014, the U.S. accused Russia of
violating the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear
Forces Treaty, an agreement between the two
countries banning medium range missiles. The
treaty stated that the Russian Federation may
not possess, produce, or test a ground-launched
cruise missile with a range capability of 310 to
3,417 miles, nor produce or possess launchers
of such missiles. Senior U.S. State Department
officials said that Russia had violated the treaty,
citing cruise missile tests by Russia dating back
to 2008. That same month Russia sent 20,000
troops to the border of Ukraine. The move was in
response to an aggressive campaign by the
Ukrainian military, which included taking control
of some of the border crossings that Russia had
been using to arm the rebels.
On Sept. 5, representatives from the Ukrainian
government, the Russian-backed separatists,
Russia, and the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe who had been meeting in
Minsk, Belarus, announced that they had agreed
on a cease-fire, an agreement called the Minsk
Protocol. The terms include an immediate end to

fighting, the exchange of prisoners, amnesty for

those who did not commit serious crimes, a
6-mile buffer zone along the Ukrainian-Russian
border, decentralization of power in the Donbass
region (the area dominated by the Russianbacked rebels), and the creation of a route to
deliver humanitarian aid. However, the fighting
continued despite the cease-fire. Between the
signing of the cease-fire and early December,
about 1,000 civilians and soldiers were killedabout 25% of the total 4,300 military and civilian
fatalities. In addition, NATO reported that Russia
has continued to supply the rebels with combat
troops, vehicles, backing up claims by the
Ukrainian government.
The cease-fire was all but shattered in January
2015 when the fighting between separatists and
the government intensified in eastern Ukraine,
rebels took over the Donetsk airport, and
evidence mounted that Russia was supplying the
rebels with increasingly sophisticated weapons.
Poroshenko said as many as 9,000 Russian
soldiers were taking part in the fighting in
Luhansk and Donetsk, a claim Russia denied.
Amid the crisis, the leaders of Russia, Ukraine,
Germany, and France met in Feb. 2015 to try to
resurrect the Minsk Protocol. After 16 hours of
negotiations, the parties agreed to a cease-fire
and to end the war in eastern Ukraine.
On Feb. 27, 2015, just two days before he was
scheduled to lead an opposition peace rally,
Boris Nemtsov was shot and killed in Moscow.
Nemtsov had been a vocal critic of Putin, and
most recently, of the war in Ukraine. According to
fellow opposition leader Ilya Yashin, at the time
of his death, Nemtsov had been working on a
report of the Russian military's involvement in
Ukraine. Putin condemned Nemtsov's murder
and promised to lead the investigation into his
death. Nemtsov was the most prominent
opposition leader to be killed during Putin's
presidency. The incident sparked outrage and
protests, including tens of thousands marching
through Moscow in the days after the
assassination.
See also Encyclopedia: Russia.
U.S. State Dept. Country Notes: Russia
State Committee of the Russian Federation on
Statistics: www.gks.ru/eng/ .
See also Russian History Timeline.
See Chechnya Timeline.

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