“Putin’s political spetsnaz,” Rodina Reborn.

                         Dep PM Dimitry Rogozin with a group of Union of Orthodox Banner -bearers.

“Putin’s political spetsnaz,” Rodina Reborn.(RN).A nationalist party that once called itself “Putin’s political spetsnaz,” or special force, was reinstated in Moscow on Saturday, six years after the Kremlin had it canceled.
Rodina (“Fatherland”) will remain staunchly loyal to President Vladimir Putin because of his patriotic stance, which is also at the core of the party’s ideology, said the new Rodina leader, Alexei Zhuravlyov.
Zhuravlyov, a member of the ruling United Russia, was unanimously voted the head of Rodina at a congress in Moscow. The party will be applying for official registration with the Justice Ministry, a prerequisite to participate in any elections in Russia.
Rodina, then headed by Dmitry Rogozin, was a rising force in Russian politics in the early 2000s, peaking during the 2003 parliamentary elections, when its brand of populist nationalism brought it 37 of 450 seats in the State Duma.
But the Kremlin, concerned with Rodina’s rising influence, had it merged in 2006 along with two other independent parties into the leftist and pro-government A Just Russia. Rogozin was made Russia’s envoy to NATO and later became a Deputy Prime Minister.
Rogozin endorsed the newly established party at the congress on Saturday, but opted not to join.
It remained unclear whether any of the 64 State Duma deputies with A Just Russia will leave their current party to join Rodina.
Russia has no prominent nationalist parties except for the populist and pro-Kremlin Liberal Democratic Party. However, Rodina faces stiff competition from 32 new parties of all political stripes that were registered in recent months after the liberalization of party legislation, as well as dozens that are pending registration. Hmmmm......As i warned before "Rogozin a man with a vision".Read the full story here.

Russian deputy PM Rogozin says Madonna tweet was not an insult.

  Russian deputy PM Rogozin with members of The far-right Union of Orthodox Banner -bearers.

Russian deputy PM Rogozin says Madonna tweet was not an insult.(HD).A Russian deputy prime minister has said he did not insult Madonna on Twitter ahead of her Saint Petersburg concert in which she spoke in defence of gay rights. The outspoken lawmaker, Dmitry Rogozin, tweeted a Russian abbreviation on Wednesday that was widely interpreted as an insult aimed at Madonna. In his tweet, Rogozin used the letter "b", which can sometimes refer to an offensive Russian word for "whore." "Every former b. seeks to lecture everyone on morality as she gets older. Especially during tours and gigs abroad," Rogozin tweeted. "Either take off your cross, or put on your knickers," he added.
After media outlets picked up the comments, the former NATO envoy said on Facebook on Thursday that he meant no offense and the abbreviation could refer to many things including "goddess" or "ballerina". "And they immediately linked my comments with the so-called 'Madonna' (goddamn her) even though I did not say a word about her." At her Saint Petersburg concert Thursday, Madonna spoke in support of the gay community in an often homophobic nation. She also irked authorities Tuesday when she called for the release of three members of all-girl punk band Pussy Riot, who are on trial for performing a song against President Vladimir Putin at a landmark Moscow church.Hmmmm......A deeply 'religious' man wouldn't use such words.....would he?Read the full story here.

Pussy Riot Trial Sheds Light on Kremlin's Religious Ties.

Pussy Riot Trial Sheds Light on Kremlin's Religious Ties.(Spiegel).By Benjamin Bidder.The trial against Moscow guerrilla punk band Pussy Riot is drawing to a close. Following calls from within the Russian Orthodox Church for tough punishment of the punk musicians' impromptu performance inside Moscow's main cathedral, prosecutors on Tuesday called for three-year prison sentences for each of the three accused women. Rushed trial proceedings have lasted late into the evenings. There were allegations in the courtrooom that the defendants wore clothing that was "obviously contrary to general church rules." It was even suggested that the women were practically possessed by the devil, having "twitched and jumped satanically, throwing their legs up, rolling their heads and calling out very insulting and blasphemous words."
Thanks to the slow summer news cycle, dozens of television teams from around the world have come to report on the grotesque trial at Moscow's central Khamovniki court. But it has slowly begun to dawn on both the Russian Orthodox community and the Kremlin that they may have done themselves a disservice with this ruthless and bizarre prosecution of the anti-Putin band members.
A tough verdict won't have the effect of a deterrent, warns Orthodox intellectual and clergyman Andrei Kurayev. On the contrary, the church is provoking copycat crimes and encouraging a radicalization of the opposition, he says. There has "never been a shortage of young extremists" in Russia, Kurayev adds.
Konstantin Sonin, a columnist for the business newspaper Vedomosti, even spoke of the "worst mistake by the Church since 1901." That year the Orthodox Church had the elderly writer Leo Tolstoy excommunicated.
Pop legend Madonna made a case for a lenient sentence during a concert performance in Moscow this week, as have many members of the Bundestag, Germany's parliament. Solidarity events have been staged in Munich and a support video by international pop performance artist Peaches is planned in Berlin. Even in the tranquil Swiss city of Winterthur, someone reportedly spray painted "Free Pussy Riot" on the side of building. But as questionable as the furor with which the church and justice system are pursuing the band may be, the reactions and expectations from the West are equally exaggerated. Britain's Observer newspaper called the group Putin's "biggest political headache." Meanwhile, German weekly Der Freitag asked, "Can these women overthrow Putin?" The answer, of course, is no. Though polls show that the majority of Russians disapprove of the church's ties to the government in Moscow, data from the Levada Center, a respected research agency, shows that nearly 47 percent of respondents view the maximum possible sentence of 7 years as "appropriate" punishment for the band.Read the full story here.

Meet Medinsky, the Goebbels of Resurgent Russia.A Profile of Putin's Controversial New Culture Minister.

Meet Medinsky, the Goebbels of Resurgent Russia.A Profile of Putin's Controversial New Culture Minister.(CC).By Tom Balmforth.The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact "deserves a monument." The U.S.S.R. never occupied the Baltic states, it just "incorporated" them. An infamous picture of a Nazi-Soviet military parade in Poland in 1939 was "photoshopped." Anti-Semitism in Tsarist Russia has been "greatly exaggerated." 
Alternative history? Speculative fiction? No, these are actual snippets from the academic writings of Russia's new culture minister, Vladimir Medinsky. Kremlin allies have praised the controversial author's unexpected May 21 appointment. Andrei Isayev of the ruling United Russia party calls Medinsky "an energetic man, a good manager and ideologue." Likewise, Yelena Drapeko, who sits on the State Duma's Culture Committee, says he is "entirely qualified" and "professional." But among the opposition and many scholars, his appointment has been condemned and met with a blend of shock and disappointment. The bespectacled 41-year-old academic and author of more than a dozen history tomes has been accused by his peers of everything from dubious scholarship, to plagiarism, to outright propaganda. 
Mark Solonin, a historian and specialist on World War II, likens Medinsky to the Third Reich's notorious propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, and calls his appointment an insult to Russia's rich cultural heritage. "They have selected a fairly mediocre propagandist and, what's more, a propagandist of the shameless Goebbels variety," Solonin says.
"The fact that they are appointing that kind of propagandist to the post of culture minister in a country that gave the world Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, and Tolstoy--this, of course, is a certain challenge and a certain signal. What did they want to say with this message?"
A prolific writer, Medinsky is best-known for his best-selling series "Myths," in which he purports to debunk stereotypes purportedly dreamed up by foreigners to besmirch Russia and its people. One title, for example, is titled: "On Drunkenness, Laziness and Cruelty." One of the more controversial volumes, "War. Myths of the USSR. 1939-45," has been derided by Aleksei Isayev, a World War II historian, as "agitprop" and "nonsense."
The books have nevertheless been huge hits with the public. In 2009, the daily "Kommersant" reported the series had become the "most widely circulated history book in modern Russia." They were also well received by the Kremlin. In 2009, Vladislav Surkov, who was then deputy Kremlin chief of staff and the regime's informal ideologist, said of the first volume of "Myths," "The concept of the book is very divisive and contentious, but it is absolutely to the benefit of Russia."Analysts are divided, and puzzled, over the motivations behind such a controversial appointment. Sociologist Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a member of United Russia and expert on political elites, says she knows the reason Medinsky was appointed but "cannot tell the press." Political analyst Mikhail Vinogradov of the Petersburg Politics Foundation notes that United Russia promised its leading members ministerial positions. He also suggests that Surkov, now the government's chief of staff, has close ties to Medinsky and could be behind the appointment. Perhaps the simplest explanation is given by Vladimir Pribylovsky, head of the Moscow-based Panorama think tank. The Kremlin, he suggests, simply couldn't find anybody else. "It's not the kind of position that people fight for. It's not easy to find a person for this post," Pribylovsky says. "Perhaps there was a competition between fools and they simply chose the most patriotic one."Hmmmm.......Did he happen to be a member of the Rodina or Motherland-National Patriotic Union party?Read the full story here.