The Clearing House Russia Project

Trolls in IRA had goal to destabilize the USA A person who worked for the Russian "troll farm" Internet Research Agency discussed the organization with the independent Russian news outlet Dozhd. The secretive factory had several components, including a "Russian desk," a "foreign desk," a "Facebook desk," and a "Department of Provocations," according to the former troll, who went by the name "Maxim." The Russian desk operated bots and trolls that used fake social-media accounts to flood the internet with pro-Trump messages and made-up news. The foreign desk was more sophisticated, with trolls required to learn the nuances of American politics to best "rock the boat" on divisive issues. "Our task was to set Americans against their own government," Maxim said, "to provoke unrest and discontent." Article here: https://www.businessinsider.com/former-troll-russia-disinformation

A Russian hacker accused of stealing from Russian banks reportedly confessed in court that he hacked the U.S. Democratic National Committee (DNC) and stole Hillary Clinton's emails under the direction of agents from Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB). According to Russian news site The Bell , Konstantin Kozlovsky, a Russian citizen working for a hacker group called Lurk, confessed to hacking Clinton's emails during a hearing about his arrest in August. An audio recording and minutes from the hearing were posted on Kozlovsky's Facebook page, and their authenticity was reportedly confirmed by The Bell. In a handwritten letter that also appears in a photo on his Facebook page, Kozlovsky admits to hacking the DNC on the orders of an FSB agent he called "Ilya." If confirmed, the hacker's claims could prove that President Vladimir Putin's government was behind the hacking of the DNC, despite the Kremlin's insistence that it was n

 Here is a link to a list of Russian players: https://themoscowproject.org/players/

Ruslan Shaveddinov: Russian opposition activist 'kidnapped' by army BBC:  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50912822

Putin: From Oligarch to Kleptocrat,   Author Ruth May. https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/02/01/putin-from-oligarch-to-kleptocrat/ Extensive discussion of Putin clamping down [see full article at link ]: '...In November 2011, one of my graduate students emailed me a link to a  YouTube video . He said it was about Russia and that it would shock me. I doubted it: after following economic and political events in post-Soviet Russia for twenty years, I felt I was unshockable. I was wrong. My jaw dropped as I watched 20,000 ordinary Russians booing Vladimir Putin as he stepped into a ring at a martial arts match to introduce the fighters. A few weeks later, when the December 2011 parliamentary elections were held, Putin’s United Russia Party still won, but only by a slim majority. Multiple reports of election fraud spread quickly on social media after the polls closed, and people took to the streets in the largest popular demonstrations since the fall of the Soviet Un

Russian Federation - How’s Life? The Russian Federation has made progress over the last decade in improving the quality of life of its citizens, despite lower than average scores in some topics on the Better Life Index. The Russian Federation ranks above the average in education and skills, and work-life balance but below average in the dimensions of subjective well-being, income and wealth, jobs and earnings, personal security, environmental quality, housing, civic engagement, social connections, and health status. These rankings are based on available selected data. Money, while it cannot buy happiness, is an important means to achieving higher living standards. In the Russian Federation,  the average household net-adjusted disposable income per capita is  lower than the OECD average of USD 33 604 a year. In terms of employment, around  70% of people aged 15 to 64 in Russia have a paid job , above the OECD employment average of 68%. Some 76% of men are in paid wo