In the first, she reveals a breathtakingly united barrage of criticism from not one, not two, but three different highly respected international organizations aimed at Putin’s obscene crackdown on the press in his neo-Soviet state.

In the second, she reveals horrifying new evidence of the failure of the Obama “reset” policy towards Russia, including that which indicates the Kremlin knew far more about the Boston attacks than it cared to tell U.S. law enforcement.

Julia Ioffe and Miriam Elder, the two worst Russia reporters on the planet, are at it once again.

On her Twitter feed, Elder was shocked to find Russians making Georgian wine, that is until a Moscow Times reporter explained to her that “Saperavi” does not refer to a wine being Georgian, it refers to a kind of grape that anyone can grow and make wine with. It was as if she had accused California of cheating consumers by selling wine made from grapes they also use in France.

Interestingly, as an aside, what’s actually correct is that Georgian mineral water, the famous Borjomi brand, is no longer truly Georgian though made in Georgia, because the company has been purchased by Russia (the reason it was suddenly deleted from the Russian blacklist).

Then Ioffe reported on the New Republic website that Monday’s protest had begun with a moment of silence to commemorate the anniversary of the Bolotnaya uprising a year earlier.  In fact, as the LA Times reported, the moment of silence was for a worker who was killed while setting up the staging for the Monday protest.

This is the same comical pair who breathlessly reported a year ago that the protest movement was sweeping Russia and changing it forever.  Instead, what the world actually saw was the movement wither on the vine.  Barely a quarter the support is now turning out for public demonstrations, and not one real political objective has been achieved.  Navalny’s speech before the most recent throng was disjointed, incoherent and uninspiring to say the least, but we still don’t hear anything remotely like the full truth from either Elder or Ioffe, much less to we hear anything remotely like a mea culpa for past misreporting.

With “friends” like these, Russia needs no enemies.

When he compared Russia to Nigeria, Brin was referring to corruption.   In 2002, Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index placed Russia tied for a totally shocking #71 out of 102 nations in the world when ranked for political and economic corruption.  Only 31 countries, in other words, had more corruption than Russia.

Brin actually wasn’t correct, though, in comparing Russia to Nigeria at that time.  In 2002, Nigeria was #101 on the list of 102 countries, nearly at the bottom and much worse than Russia.  The correct African country to have compared Russia to at that time was Zimbabwe, Tanzania or Ivory Coast, all of which were tied with Russia on the TICPI.  Russia was also tied with the likes of lowly Hondoras.

But fast-forward to 2012, and things are quite different.  In fact,  Brin looks rather prescient now.   The 2012 CPI places Russia tied again with Hondoras, this time  for #133 on the list, while Nigeria is right behind at #139, tied with Pakistan. Only one point separates the scores of Nigeria and Russia on the most recent survey.  They are, in terms of corruption, to all intents and purposes identical.

The 2012 survey was vastly expanded from the one ten years earlier, and included 176 countries.  In 2002, 30% of the world’s countries were more corrupt than Russia, 70% were less corrupt.  But by 2012, only 25% of the world’s nations were more corrupt than Russia, while a whopping 75% were less corrupt than Russia.  Russia position on the list of nations decreased in both absolute and relative terms. By contrast  Nigeria, previously lagging behind almost the entire world, was relatively speaking now vastly improved and much more honest, and most importantly absolutely indistinguishable from Russia. Russia, by contrast, was much more dishonest. So in that way at least, comparing Russia to Nigeria is an insult. To Nigeria.

Enter blogger Mark Adomanis.  In a post simply dripping with pro-Kremlin propaganda, Adomanis attempts to attack a fellow blogger who echoed Brin’s comments about Russia and Nigeria being equivalent in terms of corruption.

Amazingly, Adomanis totally ignores the issue of corruption.  It is the number two item on the other blogger’s list of points of comparison, which Adomanis republishes but does not translate, and correctly shows that Nigeria and Russia are nearly identical on this point.  Of course, Nigeria and Russia are also very similar in that their economies both depend entirely upon the sale of crude oil for their survival.  Adomanis gives no context to Brin’s remark and doesn’t even try to provide any link to his readers so they could understand it.

Instead, in the classic manner of a Soviet propagandist, Adomanis tries to distract his readers from the point by focusing on issues that have nothing to do with corruption, like infant mortality, unemployment, life expectancy, literacy and GDP.  In these factors, he says, Russia manages to do better than an African state, and this proves Russia isn’t “Nigeria with snow.”

Adomanis does manage to admit in a very backhanded way that unlike Russia, Nigeria’s population is growing rapidly and has now significantly exceeded that of Russia.  And his first comparison chart bears this out, showing that there is virtually no difference between the mortality rates of the two countries.   He simply ignores the fact that Nigeria’s birth rate is around 40 births per 1,000 people while Russia’s birth rate is around 13, about one-third the rate of Nigeria.

Adomanis then proceeds to show that Nigeria’s rates of unemployment, life expectancy, literacy and GDP are significantly below those of Russia.  Based on this, he smugly laughs at those who would mention Nigeria and Russia in the same breath, including especially those in the Russian opposition, whom he ridicules as if he were speaking on behalf of Vladimir Putin. And who is to say he is not?

The U.S. GDP is more than seven times larger than Russia’s.  The highest inflation rate in the past two years in the USA is the same as the lowest inflation rate in Russia during that time.  America’s population is double that of Russia.  On average, Americans live 12 years longer than Russians.  Does this mean Russia can’t be mentioned in the same breath as the USA? Does it mean Russia’s places on the U.N. Security Council and the G-8 next to the USA are undeserved, and should be stripped away?

Apparently, Adomanis believes so. And more importantly, he believes that Russia does not need to address its issue of pandemic political and economic corruption, but can instead afford to ignore them because it has a better illiteracy rate than Nigeria.

Sergei Brin, leader of one of the world’s most important companies, begs to differ. And so do we. We don’t think Adomanis understands the first thing about what is important in Russia, nor does he care one whit for the fate of the people of Russia. All he cares about is rationalizing and justifying the actions of the Kremlin, helping it to continue its oppressive rule over Russia’s hapless citizens.

With “friends” like Adomanis, Russia needs no enemies.

The answer is pretty clear:  Putin isn’t our ally.  To the contrary, he concealed vital information about the Boston bombers from U.S. law enforcement before the attack, and afterwards he has been consistently obstructing the investigation.

And the reason for that is clear:  Putin wants the West to be victimized by Islamic terror, He wants the Middle East in turmoil, because turmoil promotes rising oil prices, and that lines Putin’s pockets.  What’s more, Putin spent his entire life in the KGB learning how to hate and destroy the USA, and you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

Fast forward to April 2013.  Bombs go off during the Boston Marathon and a pair of Chechen terrorists turn out to be responsible. This occurs just as Putin was catching hell for supporting the homicidal dictator of Syria, and seeking to justify his support by claiming that Chechen terrorists were among the rebels fighting to end the dictatorship.  Just as in 1999, Putin attempts to use the bombing to justify his policy, claiming it proves he was right about the Chechens all along.

Then came a blockbuster revelation:  Putin had a wiretap on the Chechen terrorists who bombed the Marathon, and never told U.S. law enforcement about it.  What’s more, Putin began stonewalling the investigation into the bombing, failing to provide lots of other information wanted by U.S. authorities.

Is it possible that Putin knew the Chechens were going to launch an attack on the U.S., and let them do so in order to have convenient justification for his policies in Syria, as well as his crackdown in the Caucasus region?

In nominal terms, you are four times more likely to be killed by fire in Russia than in the United States. In per capita terms, it is eight times more likely.

The world saw the horrific consequences of this terrifying Russian reality last week, when a psychiatric hospital in the town of Ramensky, north of Moscow, caught fire. 36 patients and two staff were killed, only three occupants escaped, and 29 were burned alive.

It took fire trucks more than one hour to respond to the scene.

This is barbarism, unchained, as only Russia can achieve.

For more than a decade now, Vladimir Putin has been increasing military spending and cold-war rhetoric in a pathological manner, and hoarding Russia’s currency reserves, instead of investing in making life better for Russian people.  This is not surprising, since Putin is a proud KGB spy and he is doing nothing more than copying the policies of his forefathers in the USSR.

Meanwhile, the craven denizens of Russia hand Putin unchecked power and allow him to act as he pleases, inviting more outrageous apocalypses like the one in Ramensky for themselves and their children to endure.

Since the beginning of the year, the Russian stock market has entered freefall.  It started the year at 1550 on the MICEX index and just fell below 1350 as oil prices continue their decline due to low demand in China and the West.

The Russian stock market has lost nearly 15% of its value in just the first quarter of 2013, and there is no end in sight.  As we recently reported, numerous Russian experts now believe that the Russian economy has entered a recession as economic growth has been in freefall for more than two years now, and despite this Russia is also seeing soaring inflation, the classic economic disaster scenario known as “stagflation,” the dragon that killed the USSR.

Russia has no true stock market. Instead, it has an absurd little jester, who dances to the tune called by world oil prices.  It has no mind or life of its own, it simply does what the world oil markets tell it to do.  One cannot invest in Russia, one can only invest in the price of oil. We saw what happened to Russia in 2008 during the global economic downturn:  absolute economic disaster. Things aren’t even that bad this time, but Russia is still headed into recession.

This week the price of Brent crude dropped below $100 per barrel, and not one but two prominent Russian figures announced that Russia has entered recession.

First there was Ksenia Yudaeva, Putin’s representative to the G-20.  She stated: “Frankly speaking, Russia probably already is in recession.”

Then came oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov, owner of the New Jersey Nets.  He stated: “The economy is in recession.”

Moreover, Russia Today admits that global investor interest in Russia has plummeted by a shocking two-thirds in the last month.

You read it here first. Way out in front of the curve, we told you long ago that Russia’s economy had lost its momentum and was headed for the big flush.

But that’s only half the story.  We also told you that Russia’s inflation rate is out of control, which should not be happening as the economy contracts and is a sign of the paralyzing ultimate economic disaster known as stagflation, the illness that destroyed the USSR.

Putin has led his nation once again to the brink of national collapse.

This time, Kim shows how RBTH is  grossly distorting  the terrifying rise in military spending in Putin’s Russia.

Last time, Kim demonstrated how RBTH hideously misreported the kidnapping and torture of Leonid Razvozzhayev by the Kremlin’s operatives.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me!

But it is #56 when ranked for usage of the Internet. A shocking 47 countries in the world have smaller total populations than Russia but more extensive usage of the Internet.  Business usage of the Internet in Russia is a truly stunning world #95.

Looking further at the Runet, the picture gets even darker.

Russia ranks #90 for business innovation, #107 for growth of e-business, #108 for regulatory framework and #125 for intellectual property protection.

In fact, the only reason Russia ranks as high as it does, #54 for overall network readiness, is simply that Russia has a vast number of mobile users and improving broadband access for them. But the reason for this is that Russia’s land-line infrastructure is so utterly wretched that people have no choice but to opt for mobile phones. A tiny mobile phone is far from being the best way to fully access the wonders and power of global connectivity.

Costa Rica, Kazakhstan and Oman all rank higher than Russia does for overall network readiness.

Nobody can be surprised by this woeful performance given Russia’s draconian, neo-Soviet crackdown on the Runet. The Putin dictatorship relentlessly attacks online freedom, shutting down websites and prosecuting bloggers with impunity.  For this reason, Russia will continue to languish as a backwards country, cut off from the progress of modernity and from the flow of information that is crucial to global competitiveness.