'A memorial march for murdered politician Boris Nemtsov has been approved by the Moscow authorities, one of the organizers has said.
The march has been held annually since Nemtsov was shot in the back meters away from the Kremlin in February 2015.
The march will be held Feb. 25, beginning at Strastnoi Bulvar and ending on Sakharov Prospekt, opposition politician Ilya Yashin said on Twitter.'
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Moscow Authorities Approve Nemtsov Memorial March, February 14, 2018
'The visit by Russia’s three highest-ranking siloviki might be the result of the Trump administration’s decision to hold off — for now — on increasing the pressure on Russia through new sanctions, as mandated by the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).''Russia’s Foreign Intelligence (SVR) Director Sergei Naryshkin and Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) head Igor Korobov — both of whom are personally targeted by U.S. sanctions — along with the Federal Security Service (FSB) chief all travelled at the same time in January to the United States.
It was an extraordinary event given the adversarial state of U.S.-Russian relations.
The political implications of this visit likely extend far beyond the counter-terrorism operations and will probably remain a mystery for some time.
The visit by Russia’s three highest-ranking siloviki might be the result of the Trump administration’s decision to hold off — for now — on increasing the pressure on Russia through new sanctions, as mandated by the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).
The White House issued a watered-down version of its “Kremlin list,” refused to impose new sanctions against Russia’s defense and intelligence sectors and published a report on the negative effects of U.S. sanctions on Russia’s national debt.
It apparently saw this as the best way of meeting current U.S. security interests. From this perspective, the assertion by Swedish economist Anders Aslund that a top White House official scrapped the original “Kremlin list” at the last moment and replaced it with a larger list copied straight from a Forbes magazine ranking of rich Russians does not look so far-fetched.
The list was published just minutes before the deadline imposed by law. However, if it had been such a non-offensive listing of names right from the start, there would have been no reason to delay its publication.
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The unprecedented visit by the heads of all three intelligence services indicates that President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump made this political decision themselves — and probably right after the CIA helped the FSB prevent a major terrorist attack in St. Petersburg — for which Putin thanked Trump personally.'
- Vladimir Frolov,
Why the Directors of Russia’s Intelligence Agencies Visited Washington, February 8, 2018
Context'Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.' - Ronald ReaganYeltsin: A man with a complicated legacy'..My wish that in 2018 Russia will learn what the British, the Austrians, and the Turks Learned in 1918.''On Russia, we have no illusions about the regime we are dealing with..' - Tillerson'..leaders to respect international law, human rights and act with compassion and empathy.'