Moscow
Human-rights activist Elena Bonner has refused to endorse a planned Moscow monument to her late husband, Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov. Bonner said the government of President Vladimir Putin had no right to honor the Nobel Prize laurette who exposed the evils of the Soviet system. Those evils, she wrote in The Wall Street Journal this week, are still present in Russian life under a thin veil of fake democracy, complete with “sham elections, a servile judiciary, and manipulated media.” Under Putin, Bonner wrote, Russia’s fledgling democratic institutions have been gutted while the country continues its “genocidal war in Chechnya.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Trump's actions cut a wide swath across Hawaii's economyIn Depth The state's tourism and farming sectors are two of the largest hit industries
-
5 immersive books to read this April for a brief escapeThe Week Recommends A dystopian tale takes us to the library, a journalist's ode to her refugee parents and more
-
'The winners and losers of AI may not be where we expect'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
