The decision was announced at a press conference on Wednesday, which the oppositionists used to discuss cooperative tactics and strategies. “Under the current conditions, we feel that the December 4 parliamentary elections will be illegitimate,” says the declaration. “We call on citizens to boycott these shameful ‘elections’ in any rational way.”

“We call on all honest citizens to come out on December 4 to protests that will be held on the central squares of Russia’s cities and villages,” the declaration goes on.

Among the signees to the document were Solidarity co-leader Garry Kasparov, the organization’s political council organizer Denis Bilunov, Left Front leader Sergei Udaltsov, Islamic Committee of Russia founder Geydar Dzhemal, and leading activists Yury Mukhin, Anatoly Baranov, and Aleksandr Krasnov.

Garry Kasparov said that Russians must ignore the elections and begin building a parallel political reality using contemporary technology, referring to Leonid Volkov’s internet project “Democracy 2.”

Aleksandr Krasnov proposed using December 4 not as an election day, but as the beginning of an act of civil disobedience that would end with the resignation of the ruling authorities. He insisted that the creation of a new political reality is only possible once the current one has been destroyed.

To express their discontent with the illegitimacy of the elections, Krasnov noted that voters can also de-register to strip themselves of voting rights or obtain, but not use, absentee ballots (which in Russia are available from polling stations) to symbolize that they will not be participating.

Anatoly Baranov argued that the only way to carry out the boycott is for every citizen to take their absentee ballot and bring it out to a protest.

A recent survey carried out by the Levada Center showed that more than half of Russians don’t believe that the upcoming elections will be free or fair. Fifty-three percent of respondents said they were certain that the December 4 proceedings will be no more than an imitation of an election and that the government determines who will hold seats in the State Duma.

The Prime Minister arrived at the State Duma altogether two minutes late. His arrival, as is customary, came along with heightened security measures: in front of the main entrance, federal security officers demanded that drivers remove their vehicles from the parking lot. LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s luxury Maybach was among the victims. Reinforced police squadrons could be seen all the way from the Okhotny Ryad metro station, but police officers were deathly silent in response to questions from bewildered Muscovites as to whether or not there’d been a terrorist attack.

In his address, which was constantly interrupted by enthusiastic applause from State Duma deputies, Putin did not fail to bring attention to his traditional political topics. In particular, he remarked upon “the destabilization of the entire region,” a transparent hint at the unrest across the Arab world, where “economic and state infirmity is inevitably resulting in a threat to sovereignty.”

“If you’re weak, somebody will drive to you or fly to you and tell you what side to move to without fail. And behind such benevolent and unobtrusive advice – behind this is blatant interference in the internal affairs of different states,” said Putin, hinting at the civil war in Libya.

“Modernization is something that needs to be concentrated on,” Putin went on, echoing Medvedev’s choice topic. But he then followed to enter into a certain polemic with the president, noting that in the course of the development of Russia’s competitiveness and innovative industries, it needs neither “unjustified liberalism” nor “social demagogy,” as this “will distract from development.”

Speaking about the competitiveness of the country over the next ten years, Putin said that Russia should become one of the top five global economies and double its productivity. Putin returned several times to the topics of the development of high-tech and science-driven industries, special economic zones, technology parks, and foreign investment in the Russian economy – the amount of which could, in Putin’s words, reach $60-70 billion a year if administrative and customs barriers were removed. The first steps to create a unified economic space from Lisbon to the Pacific Ocean with a continental market in the trillions of euros, he said, is the creation of a united energy complex and the abolition of the visa regime with the European Union, which Russia is prepared to do.

Summing up the results of his work in the past year, Putin said that Russia’s main achievement in 2010 was that there was no serious upheaval during the global crisis. He noted the economic problems in Portugal, Greece and Iceland, which were forced to seek external financial help, and then gave the example of Russia, where GDP rose 4% in the past year. “The highest percentage among the G-8 countries,” he said.

The prime minister also touched on a number of high-profile events in 2010. About twenty minutes was dedicated to the summer drought. Putin noted that the country coped with the forest fires and their consequences much more successfully than they did in the 1930s. Thanking the Ministry of Emergency Situations, military troops and volunteers, he expounded upon the merits of the government’s efforts to distribute new housing to victims of the fires and to provide credit to farmers, as well as other measures that helped people survive the drought better than Russians did during the Stalin era.

The motif of the Stalinist era came up a second time in Putin’s address when he spoke of the tragedy in the Raspadskaya mine and the need to modernize industry.

“We need a new wave of industrial development in Russia,” Putin proclaimed, before criticizing federal television channels for rarely showing examples of the conscientious and heroic labor of the working man.

Anticipating questions by deputies that had been announced earlier, Putin spoke about support of the domestic automobile industry, defense industry, aviation and the agro-industrial complex. This part of the report was socially-oriented and dedicated to state support for these industries.

According to Putin, the government plans to allocate 20 trillion rubles (712.2 billion USD) for the development of the defense industry. “It’s scary to say such figures out loud,” Putin said, noting that these funds should go to domestic businesses and that only new technologies should be acquired from abroad. Putin reassured the deputies that the distribution of these funds to the defense complex does not mean that Russia is planning to go to war with anyone, but has to do with the need to upgrade obsolete systems.

As is traditional, the prime minister dedicated a great deal of time to social politics, speaking about state programs to create new jobs, support for women and the disabled, health care, raising pensions, and reducing unemployment from 7 million at the peak of the crisis to 5 million in 2010.

The address lasted nearly three hours.

A group of political analysts interviewed by Kasparov.ru concluded that the prime minister’s address makes it look as if Putin is preparing to run for a third term for president in 2012.

Gregory Satarov, president of the Indem research foundation:
“This wasn’t a prime ministerial address, but more so an address by the director of a sanatorium for high-ranked psychos in for follow-up care. He told them what the situation is with the toilets, the barns, the sewers, and the address had nothing to do with Russia, although the psychos in follow-up care are going to like it.

“Putin said who the money is going to be dished out to and in what amounts. So it was entirely a pre-election speech.”

Sergei Ryzhenkov, political analyst and editor-in-chief of Demagogiya.ru:
“Putin’s report can be seen both as an electoral speech for himself and one from United Russia. But most of all it was his pre-electoral programme. He’s stylizing the speech of [Imperial Prime Minister Pyotr] Stolypin, promising 10 years of stable development. Putin himself came alive, the steely notes in his voice came back, there was certainty. All signals indicate that he’s going to run in the election.”

Olga Mefodeva, analyst from the Center for Political Technologies:
“These were strategic remarks, precisely in Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin’s style. The address concerned various topics and was directed at a wide circle of people so that there’d be more of a public reaction. Putin showed that he has his own point of view.”

Stanislav Belkovsky, political analyst, president of the Institute of National Strategy:
“Putin’s report can be seen as part of President Dmitri Medvedev’s electoral campaign, because Putin has once again positioned himself as an anti-modernization conservative. All liberal and progressive people should grasp at their hearts and say “Bloody Putin is returning” and run to vote for Medvedev. That is to say, the project of the ‘lesser evil’, where the lesser evil is represented by Medvedev, continues to come unwound.

“As far as the content of the report is concerned, it needs to be analyzed by a psychiatrist. Everything that Putin isn’t doing, didn’t think and doesn’t plan to do – he named it in this programme. First he says that it’s necessary to turn away from dangerous liberal experiments and social demagogy, and then he speaks in favor of ‘Strategy 2020,’ which was developed by Rector Vladimir Mau from the Academy of National Economy and Rector Yaroslav Kuzminov of the Higher School of Economics.

“Mau and Kuzminov propose abandoning the pension system, abolishing export duties on raw materials, and eliminating the mining industry. What is that if not a dangerous liberal experiment and social demagogy?

“There’s the impression that Putin doesn’t know what his government is doing.”

Compiled by reports from Gazeta.ru and Kasparov.ru.

The vote was split down party lines, with the Kremlin-backed United Russia party voting as a bloc in favor of the bill. All deputies from the three other parties voted against it.

The bill was introduced by the Russian federal government on April 24. It will allow the FSB to issue preemptive warnings to individuals or groups that the agency suspects of acting in a way that could potentially become “extremist.” Such extremist activity, it claims, is on the rise in Russia today.

Specifically, the legislation will now allow the FSB to employ “special preventative measures” in order to “eliminate causes and conditions that are conducive to the realization of threats to security” and to issue “official warning notifications about the inadmissibility of actions that bring about the creation of causes of, and which create the conditions for, committing crime.”

What does that mean? In principle, it means that the FSB can do whatever it decides must be done to prevent situations that, theoretically, could lead to a crime being committed.

What that’s going to look like in practice remains to be seen. Experts warn that the legislation is so vague that the agency could easily use it to severely impede upon normal social activism and the normal operation of the press, leading to greater self-censorship by anyone critical of government policy. This concern stems from the fact that allegations of extremism are routinely used by Russian law enforcement agents to stifle legal forms of dissent by human rights activists, oppositionists, artists, journalists, and others.

Vladimir Lukin, the federal human rights ombudsman reappointed by President Dmitri Medvedev in 2009, said that the law was dangerous and discredits the FSB. But calls by critics to veto the legislation expect to go unheeded by the president, as it was the federal government that introduced the bill in the first place.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty sums up the primary controversies over the bill:

Russian media sources say the law would allow the FSB to warn citizens that their behavior could create conditions that could lead to a crime — even in cases where there are no legal grounds to hold them criminally responsible. It also provides for fines against citizens who disobey FSB officials or in any way hinder their work.

According to an explanatory note posted on the State Duma’s website, the law is necessary due to a sharp rise in extremist activity. The note cites figures from the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor-General’s Office claiming that extremist crimes rose by 30 percent from 2007 to 2008.

The note also criticized the media for propagating “individualism, violence, and mistrust of the state’s capacity to protect its citizens, effectively drawing young people to extremist activities.”

Ilya Ponomarev, a lawmaker from the Duma faction of A Just Russia, calls this hyperbole, saying that the government’s figures on extremist activity are inflated.

“They often label absolutely normal social activists as extremists,” Ponomarev says. “And when the authorities are faced with a real threat to public safety they are helpless. Neither preemptive warnings nor fines will solve this problem.”

There is no shortage of examples of the Russian authorities using accusations of extremism as an excuse to stifle dissent. Federal officials routinely harass protesters, conduct raids of homes and offices, hinder legal forms of protest, and in some cases will block opposition websites, not to mention the torture accusations from Amnesty International.

Speaking to the newspaper Kommersant, Lev Levinson of the Russian non-governmental Institute for Human Rights said that the bill would shift responsibilities currently held by state prosecutors to the police, a move he said was both unnecessary and dangerous. “This is precisely what the fight against dissent is apparently turning into,” he said. “That today the chekisti (referring to the FSB) don’t have the authority to issue warnings doesn’t mean in the least that there aren’t feasible ways to prevent crime.” Levinson added that while prosecutors act as a sieve to prevent abuses when issuing warnings about extremism, the FSB would not.

All in all, said Levinson, the initiative would “untie the hands of FSB officers,” and abuses by the agency can consequently be expected to grow.

In a statement responding to the Moscow metro bombings, Garry Kasparov’s United Civil Front reminded readers of the steps taken over the past ten years by the Russian government in the name of fighting terrorism and extremism, pointing out that, given the bombings, they have not been ideally effective.

The tragic events that occurred in Moscow on March 29, 2010, could be appropriated by the current government for an even larger infringement of the rights and freedoms of citizens of the Russian Federation. The apartment bombings in Moscow, Buynaksk, and Volgodonsk in the fall of 1999 triggered the beginning of a second military campaign in Chechnya and immediately provided Vladimir Putin with the necessary ratings for victory in the 2000 presidential elections. As a result of the terrorist attacks in the Dubrovka Theater in October 2002 and in Beslan in September 2004, elections for governors and regional leaders in Russia were abolished. And today, after the events of March 29 in Moscow, it is obvious that these measures did not increase the safety of Russia’s citizens in the least.

No matter how much this new bill might look like a continuation down that same path, any opposition to the bill is unlikely to keep it from passing given that United Russia, the pro-Kremlin party lead by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, holds an overwhelming majority in the State Duma,.

Update 4/6/10: The Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament, turned down the State Duma’s bill during it’s Tuesday session. Mihkail Kapura, deputy chairman of the judicial committee, cited a lack of viability to implement such restrictions and the danger of bringing about the destruction of free speech.

A new law passed on Monday by the Russian State Duma will ban the media from reproducing any statements whatsoever issued by anyone deemed to be a terrorist, ITAR-TASS reports.

The bill was written by Robert Shlegel, a member of the leading United Russia party and former press secretary for the pro-Kremlin youth movement Nashi. It will amend current legislation governing the media to include a ban on “the distribution of any material from persons wanted for or convicted of participating in terrorist activities.”

Shlegel said that the March 29 suicide bombings on the Moscow metro, which killed 40 people and injured more than 100, was the impetus for the bill. He said that he opposes giving a spotlight in the media to Doku Umarov, the Chechen rebel leader who has claimed responsibility for the attacks. He also criticized Google for allowing its YouTube video service to host a recording of Umarov’s post-March 29 statement.

“News about militants should consist only of reports about their destruction,” Shlegel concluded.

Amidst the heightened criticism at the Russian government’s failure to address terrorism originating in the country’s volatile North Caucasus region, some Kremlin supporters have accused the press of being terrorist collaborators. In particular, State Duma Speaker and United Russia member Boris Gryzlov singled out columnist Aleksandr Minkin of the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper as collaborating with the terrorists responsible for the March 29 attacks. Minkin has demanded an apology from Gryzlov and threatened to sue him for slander. Gryzlov has threatened a counter suit. Additionally, United Russia member Andrei Isayev has threatened that party members might sue Minkin for being a terrorist collaborator.

Director Oleg Panfilov of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations said that the new law will turn Russia into a country like North Korea and was another example of Shlegel’s “routine stupidity.” “It immediately raises the question,” he said, “Who do we label as terrorists? Those convicted by the court, or those that the bureaucrats consider to be terrorists?”

Secretary Mikhail Fedotov of the Russian Union of Journalists explained that nothing good could result from Russian society being deprived of information about the positions and confessions of alleged terrorists. “Society should know the face of its villains and understand what kind of evil it is being confronted with,” he stressed.

Even without the new law, the Russian media already faces complications with the authorities’ interpretation of current media legislation. Reports surfaced late Monday that the federal communications supervisory agency Roskomnadzor has accused the online edition of the Argumenty Nedeli newspaper of extremism for posting a video of Umarov’s statement. According to the agency, posting the video violates a law prohibiting the media from being used for extremist activity. The law, however, is criticized by oppositionists and human rights groups as being so vague as to allow the government to define extremism however they’d like, and has resulted in crackdowns on a wide variety of groups and individuals critical of the Kremlin.

Commission member Andreas Gross told the press that the Russian government had failed to observe the right to free assembly. “It is not apparently to the Russian government that the right to free assembly is a basic human right and should not be a topic for debate,” said Gross.

Russian opposition groups have long complained of brutal repression in response to their rallies, which are usually denied sanction by regional authorities. Of particular note are the Strategy 31 rallies organized by the Other Russia coalition, dedicated to the 31st article of the Russian constitution guaranteeing freedom of assembly. Moscow city authorities have categorically refused to sanction the rallies, although organizers have chosen to hold them regardless. Each of the half-dozen rallies has ended with scores of detentions and brutal repression by the police.

While the Moscow mayor’s office has insisted that the Strategy 31 rallies would be sanctioned if the organizers agreed to move them to another location, Gross said that he found such pretexts untenable. Moreover, he said that he made it clear to government authorities that beating members of unsanctioned protests was not acceptable.

Commission member György Frunda brought attention to problems in Russia’s electoral system. The current 7 percent threshold that a political party must reach during elections to hold seats in the State Duma is too high, he said. “The electoral system on the whole is in need of change,” as was the state prosecutor’s office, Frunda added. Gross said in conclusion that the commission hoped to see an increase in the number of parliamentary parties in the State Duma after the next set of elections.

Currently, the only political parties in the State Duma are the Kremlin-backed United Russia party(holding 70 percent of the seats), the Communist Party (12.7 percent), and the loyal oppositionist parties A Just Russia (8.9 percent) and the Liberal Democratic Party (8.4 percent). The 7 percent threshold makes it very difficult for opposition parties to gain seats, especially given that elections in Russia are already generally accompanied by widespread voter fraud in favor of United Russia.

The monitoring commission plans to return to Russia in July, and will release a full report of its findings in the beginning of 2011.

People’s Democratic Union (RNDS) representative Yelena Dikun told Gazeta.ru that the former prime minister, who became an outspoken critic of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin after being dismissed by the then-President in 2004, said that Yabloko has responded with “fundamental agreement” to his proposal to create a political coalition. Kasyanov had said earlier that the goal of such a coalition would be to present a unified list of candidates from the democratic opposition to run in the 2011 parliamentary elections.

“The RNDS and Yabloko are now working on coordinating a joint political statement,” said Dikun, without commenting further on details of the negotiations.

Yabloko’s leadership, however, immediately denied the announcement. “I refute the idea that we’ve given our agreement; there wasn’t any,” party leader Sergei Mitrokhin told Gazeta.ru. “There’s an appeal from Mikhail Kasyanov, and we haven’t refused to discuss it. There’s an ongoing electronic correspondence, I have all the letters saved – why Kasyanov took it as a “fundamental agreement” to create a coalition, I don’t know.”

Mitrokhin stressed that creating a political coalition was a gradual process: “It’s not possible to race through this – that would bring about something frivolous,” he said.

The Yabloko leader did say that such a coalition would not succeed if the two parties remained separate. “[A coalition] would be possible as a fraction within Yabloko; there are no other methods in the current situation,” he said, adding that creating a unified list of candidates for the elections was impossible by “hooking on from the outside.”

Declining to comment on Mitrokhin’s statement, Dikun said only that “I confirm my statement.” Konstantin Merzlikin, a deputy representative from RNDS, said that negotiations were indeed still ongoing, but were focused on determining what political platform the coalition would be based on. “It’s important to us that the coalition begin its work long before the elections,” he added.

Regarding Mitrokhin’s statement that the RNDS may have to become a fraction of Yabloko, Merzlikin responded that it was too early to say. “We are discussing the possibility of creating a coalition,” he stressed. “Whether or not this process will develop into a merger, time will tell.”

In addition to Yabloko, Kasyanov had issued the February 4 appeal for unification to the opposition movement Solidarity and Garry Kasparov’s United Civil Front. Solidarity co-leader Boris Nemtsov, also a former prime minister, said that while his party was declining the offer, “the unification process is very important – but it will not be simple to do.”

“Until now, Yabloko has not been seen in any of the processes for unification,” Nemtsov elaborated. “We will be glad if Mikhail Mikhailovich’s effort works out, but for me personally, it’s hard to believe.” Nemtsov’s former party, Union of Right Forces, held unsuccessful negotiations for several years to unify with Yabloko.

Nevertheless, Solidarity was more than ready to welcome Kasyanov into their ranks. “Our doors are open to him,” Nemtsov said. “Almost all the RNDS members besides him belong to Solidarity. We’ve told him a thousand times – come join us.”

St. Petersburg resident Vera Kamkina, who lost both her mother and husband last year, told the publication that “I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, and I’m not a drug addict. Of course, my family is extremely poor. I raised my children by myself and wasn’t able to work. But I had help from relatives and charity.”

The officials told the woman that her children would be returned after she repaid 140 thousand rubles (about $4,600) in debt to the housing authorities for rent on her apartment.

In an interview on Ekho Moskvy radio, children’s rights representative Pavel Astakhov said that the authorities should take all aspects of a child’s family life into consideration in such cases, and not only material issues.

An unnamed municipal custody official denied to Novye Izvestia that children were taken from their families “because of poverty,” and that “the fairy tales about how their children were taken away are told by alcoholics who have enough money for the bottle but not for their their children.”

An amendment currently under consideration in the Russian State Duma would raise the standard for parental responsibilities to children. If adopted, parents would be required to provide children with “material support, including providing nutrition, clothing, shoes, and housing,” in addition to the appropriate care currently required by law.

Despite the clear importance for children to be properly provided for, Marina Ozhegova of the parental advocacy organization “Lots of Kids is Good!” fears that such an amendment will be harmful for both parents and children. “In Russia, 80 percent of families with multiple children live below the poverty line,” she said. “Many have their gas and electricity turned off because of debts to the housing authorities.”

Rosstat, Russia’s federal statistics agency, estimates that 5,877 children were taken into custody as a result of unfulfilled parental obligations in 2008, compared with 2,557 children in 2000.

The measure was introduced as an amendment to current Russian legislation that governs demonstrations and other public gatherings.

Legislators explained the measure in an explanatory note, saying that solo protesters sometimes set themselves on fire or, alternatively, come under attack by other people. Under current legislation, the note continues, local police receive no notification that a protest is planned and therefore are unable to properly respond when such a situation breaks out.

Until now, solitary demonstrations were the only legal means of protest for Russian citizens that did not require any type of official sanction. Opposition protesters have frequently been forced to utilize this provision after being denied sanction for larger gatherings.

Russian rights activists and opposition leaders reacted strongly to Friday’s announcement that their last remaining means of legal protest would soon be effectively banned, rejecting the idea that the measure was for their own safety.

Denis Bilunov, executive director of the opposition movement Solidarity, said that the initiative “directly contradicts” federal law.

Roman Dobrokhotov, leader of the opposition movement We, said that the initiative was no surprise given the Ministry of Transport’s recent move to stiffen penalties for protesters who blocked roads or highways.

The new penalties were introduced to the Russian State Duma at the end of December, with fines rising from 2,500 rubles ($84) to 100,000 rubles ($3,340), and the maximum prison sentence rising from 15 days to two years.

Blocking highways has become a growing means of protest in Russia for older citizens and pensioners who have failed to affect change through other means. Residents in the devastated industrial town of Pikalevo were able to receive long unpaid wages only after gaining nationwide media attention by blocking a federal highway last June.

According to Dobrokhotov, both pieces of legislation will backfire if adopted.

“We will block the roads and hold solo protests out of principle, to fight for our rights,” he said. “Moreover, we will hold such demonstrations more often than before.”

Dobrokhotov added, however, that essentially “nothing is changing” since police have often interrupted solitary demonstrations regardless of the fact that they are legal.

In November, Solidarity leaders obtained an internal police memo that ordered officers to illegally disrupt a series of solo demonstrations. The movement plans to use the document in a lawsuit against the Russian Internal Ministry’s notorious Center for Extremism Prevention, which, according to the document, ordered the illegal detentions.

Ilya Yashin, a Solidarity member who posted the police memo on his blog, agreed that there was nothing surprising about the newest government initiative. “The authorities consider this type of demonstration to be a menace, since it’s the only measure that the opposition can still use relatively effectively,” he said.

Approximately 50 protesters took to the streets in Moscow on Saturday in response to both pieces of legislation. Sergei Udaltsov, leader of the Left Front political organization, said that activists would protest outside of the Kremlin when the amendments come up for deliberation.

“The year is beginning badly,” Udaltsov said. “The government’s initiatives attest to the fact that they are expecting a second wave for the crisis and, consequently, a rise in protests.”

Police officers subjected people attempting to join the protest to a thorough search, banning some from taking part on the basis of unspecified written material that the people in question were carrying.

Prominent human rights advocate Lev Ponomarev said that the amendment to strip citizens of the unconditional right to solitary protests would be harmful for citizen society at large. “If a person is connected with a political group, he knows how to submit applications for demonstrations and rallies. An ordinary person only knows that at any moment he can go outside to hold a solitary demonstration and nobody will arrest him,” Ponomarev said.

Friday’s decision makes Russia the last and final member of the Council of Europe to sign the protocol, opening the way for the court to adopt a series of much-needed reforms.

Russian legislators initially refused to sign the protocol in December 2006, saying that the reforms would infringe upon Russian interests.

Specifically, the protocol would provide for a committee of three judges to decide whether or not to consider a complaint that had been filed in the court. Russian deputies also objected to a provision allowing the court to further investigate a complaint before it decided whether or not to take it under consideration.

Statements earlier in the week by State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov met with initial skepticism, with analysts fearing that the rhetoric echoed similar statements by Duma deputies that had previously gone unfulfilled.

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has handed down a vast number of rulings against Russia for rights abuses. It has ruled against Russia more than 120 times in cases related to Chechnya alone. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has accused the court of making “politicized” decisions.

According to the RFE/RL news service, the Duma’s decision to finally ratify the protocol is likely political. In particular, a pending $98 billion case from the former oil company Yukos against Russia that accuses the country of driving it into bankruptcy through unfair prosecution is a likely factor.

“The consideration of the Yukos case has been postponed for months on various pretexts. Now that all the possibilities of delays have run out, the ratification lever is being used,” says Russian political analyst Nikolai Petrov. “The Kremlin is interested in mollifying the European Court as much as possible by improving Russia’s image with the judges.”