Institute of Modern Russia

The president of the Institute of Modern Russia, Pavel Khodorkovsky, son of the best-known Russian political prisoner Mikhail Khodorkovsky, gave an exclusive interview to RFI on the eve of his father's birthday, in which he talked about the possibility of a third case being brought against his father, the degeneration of the Russian judicial system, and why he thinks that human rights issues should be raised at the European level.

In May, the UN High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda presented a report entitled “A New Global Partnership: Eradicate Poverty and Transform Economies through Sustainable Development.” IMR Advisor Boris Bruk is skeptical about the prospects for the realization of these goals in Russia.

On June 11, Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov spoke on Capitol Hill at a forum entitled “Seven Democrats and Putin: Human Rights in Russia Ahead of the G8 Summit.” The event was co-hosted by the Institute of Modern Russia and the Foreign Policy Initiative.

The fundamental driver of Russian elite politics is the clan: a network of personal contacts that cuts across facile divisions between “state” and “oligarchs,” liberals” and “conservatives,” and “reformers” and “siloviki.” According to Donald N. Jensen, Resident Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, despite constant struggles between these clans, they haven’t been able to produce a political leader who would succeed to the current president.