Feb 19, 2010

Edmund Burke Would be Proud

Masha Lipman at Carnegie Moscow has an op-ed in today’s WashPost on the spate of protests poping up across Russia. At one protest in particular, Irkutsk residents came out in droves to oppose a pulp factory that will dump chemical waste into Lake Baikal.

“Although Putin’s decision will bring jobs back to the former factory workers, it caused outrage: Many people saw the lake’s water quality sacrificed as a favor to Oleg Deripaska.”
Meanwhile, isolated calls for Putin to resign are now ringing from Kaliningrad to Samara. Alas, Putin is too busy counting his money to care.

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