Russia
Russian Federation
Capital: Moscow
The Russia Bulletin
Weekly Brief: October 12, 2015
Top Story Russia announced on Monday that its “volunteer” ground forces would join the fighting in Syria. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that he will not send Russian soldiers to Syria, but the plan to deploy irregulars parallels Russian operations in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. The news comes as Russia intensified airstrikes it began last […]
Weekly Brief: October 5, 2015
Top Story Russia began airstrikes in Syria on Wednesday. America’s Secretary of State John Kerry said that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad should leave power, but Russian president Vladimir Putin said that Assad should meet with the Syrian opposition to discuss a settlement to the conflict. Though Russia claimed to target the Islamic State of Iraq and the […]
Weekly Brief: September 28, 2015
Top Story Russia is escalating its military presence in Syria. American officials report (though Russia denies) that Russia has at least 28 warplanes deployed at an airbase near Latakia, on the Syrian coast. Russia also began flying surveillance missions in Syria with drones, a week after sending artillery and tanks to an airbase controlled by the Syrian government at […]
Weekly Brief: September 21, 2015
Top Story The influx of refugees from Syria and other parts of the Middle East and Africa continued to make headlines last week. Migrants attempting to reach Western Europe have been stymied by Hungarian border security, where police used tear gas and water cannons to keep them from overwhelming crossings along Hungary’s border with Serbia, […]
Weekly Brief: April 27, 2015
Top Story American President Barack Obama acknowledged on Wednesday that an American drone strike on an al Qaeda compound along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in January killed two hostages, an American and an Italian. Mr. Obama claimed that the mistake was due to faulty intelligence, and that American officials had no reason to believe the hostages […]
Weekly Brief: April 20, 2015
Africa Al-Shabab militants drove a car loaded with explosives into a government compound in Mogadishu, Somalia, on Tuesday. After the explosion, gunmen stormed the government offices and killed at least 17 people, including eight civilians and two soldiers. Security guards and Somali special forces soldiers eventually managed to secure the building, killing five attackers.
Weekly Brief: April 6, 2015
Top Story Parties negotiating limits on Iran’s nuclear program announced a framework agreement on Thursday, which they intend to finalize by the end of June. The talks had intensified ahead of a March 31 soft deadline for a deal. By Monday, three primary sticking points remained: the process of lifting restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program after 10 years, […]
Weekly Brief: March 23, 2015
Africa On Wednesday, gunmen stormed a museum in Tunis, Tunisia, killing 22 people and injuring at least 22 more. Tunisian security forces killed two attackers in the ensuing firefight, but three remained at large. No organization immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but local groups affiliated with al Qaeda are active in the country, and the […]
History
Founded in the 12th century, the Principality of Muscovy, was able to emerge from over 200 years of Mongol domination (13th-15th centuries) and to gradually conquer and absorb surrounding principalities. In the early 17th century, a new Romanov Dynasty continued this policy of expansion across Siberia to the Pacific. Under PETER I (ruled 1682-1725), hegemony was extended to the Baltic Sea and the country was renamed the Russian Empire. During the 19th century, more territorial acquisitions were made in Europe and Asia. Defeat in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 contributed to the Revolution of 1905, which resulted in the formation of a parliament and other reforms. Repeated devastating defeats of the Russian army in World War I led to widespread rioting in the major cities of the Russian Empire and to the overthrow in 1917 of the imperial household. The Communists under Vladimir LENIN seized power soon after and formed the USSR. The brutal rule of Iosif STALIN (1928-53) strengthened Communist rule and Russian dominance of the Soviet Union at a cost of tens of millions of lives. The Soviet economy and society stagnated in the following decades until General Secretary Mikhail GORBACHEV (1985-91) introduced glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) in an attempt to modernize Communism, but his initiatives inadvertently released forces that by December 1991 splintered the USSR into Russia and 14 other independent republics. Since then, Russia has shifted its post-Soviet democratic ambitions in favor of a centralized semi-authoritarian state in which the leadership seeks to legitimize its rule through managed national elections, populist appeals by President PUTIN, and continued economic growth. Russia has severely disabled a Chechen rebel movement, although violence still occurs throughout the North Caucasus.
Geography
Metric Units
| Total Area | 17,098,242 sq km |
| Land Boundaries | 20,241.5 km |
| Border Countries | Azerbaijan 284 km, Belarus 959 km, China (southeast) 3,605 km, China (south) 40 km, Estonia 290 km, Finland 1,313 km, Georgia 723 km, Kazakhstan 6,846 km, North Korea 17.5 km, Latvia 292 km, Lithuania (Kaliningrad Oblast) 227 km, Mongolia 3,441 km, Norway |
| Coastline | 37,653 km |
| Terrain | broad plain with low hills west of Urals; vast coniferous forest and tundra in Siberia; uplands and mountains along southern border regions |
| Minimum Elevation | -28 m |
| Maximum Elevation | 5,633 m |
| Climate | ranges from steppes in the south through humid continental in much of European Russia; subarctic in Siberia to tundra climate in the polar north; winters vary from cool along Black Sea coast to frigid in Siberia; summers vary from warm in the steppes to cool along Arctic coast |
| Natural Resources | wide natural resource base including major deposits of oil, natural gas, coal, and many strategic minerals, reserves of rare earth elements, timber |
| Arable Land | 7.11% |
| Permanent Crops | 0.1% |
Economy
| Gross Domestic Product | $2.5 trillion |
| GDP (per capita) | $17,700 |
| GDP Growth | 3.4% |
| Unemployment Rate | 5.7% |
| Population in Poverty | 12.7% |
| GINI Index | 41.7 |
Budget & Debt
| Expenditures | $423.8 billion |
| Revenue | $423.4 billion |
| Current Account Balance | $81.3 billion |
| External Debt | $565.9 billion |
Trade
| Exports | $530.7 billion |
| Export Items | petroleum and petroleum products, natural gas, metals, wood and wood products, chemicals, and a wide variety of civilian and military manufactures |
| Export Partners | Netherlands 12.2%, China 6.4%, Italy 5.6%, Germany 4.6%, Poland 4.2% (2011) |
| Imports | $335.4 billion |
| Import Items | machinery, vehicles, pharmaceutical products, plastic, semi-finished metal products, meat, fruits and nuts, optical and medical instruments, iron, steel |
| Import Partners | China 15.5%, Germany 10%, Ukraine 6.6%, Italy 4.3% (2011) |
People
| Population | 142,500,482 |
| Population Growth | -0.02% |
| Ethnic Groups | Russian 79.8%, Tatar 3.8%, Ukrainian 2%, Bashkir 1.2%, Chuvash 1.1%, other or unspecified 12.1% (2002 census) |
| Religion | Russian Orthodox 15-20%, Muslim 10-15%, other Christian 2% (2006 est.) |
| Life Expectancy | 69.85 years |
| Infant Mortality | 0.86 deaths/1,000 live births |
| Maternal Mortality | -0.2 deaths/100,000 live births |
Energy
| Electricity Production | 1.06 trillion kWh |
| Electricity Consumption | 1.04 trillion kWh |
| From Fossil Fuels | 67.7% |
| From Nuclear | 17.2% |
| From Hydroelectric | 15.1% |
| From Renewable Sources | 0% |
