(Interfax – November 18, 2014) Over a third of Russians believe it is impossible to eradicate corruption in their home country, Levada Center told Interfax. Some 43 percent of 1,630 respondents polled in 134 populated localities said corruption was worst in the traffic police, 39 percent said this about the police in general and 35 percent pointed the finger at […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – November 17, 2014) Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko has ordered all state institutions to withdraw from the rebel-held Donbass and to stop paying salaries and pensions from the state budget to residents of the region. In a decree signed on November 15, Poroshenko ordered the National Bank of Ukraine to cut off all banking services […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Delphine d’Amora – November 17, 2014) Foreign companies will soon have to seek government permission before buying a more than 25 percent stake in newspapers or magazines in Russia, extending state control in an industry still reeling from legal changes earlier this year, business daily Vedomosti reported late last week. The new amendments, which will […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Howard Amos – November 15, 2014) Reaching the climax of a personal attack on Russia’s Central Bank chairwoman Elvira Nabiullina in a debate in the State Duma early last week, Communist deputy Vyacheslav Tetyokin did not hold back. Nabiullina, he said, was “the most expensive woman in the history of our country.” Tetyokin was incensed […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – bne/IntelliNews – November 17, 2014) Russian President Vladimir Putin met with the leaders of the western world at the weekend at the G20 summit, the first face-to-face meeting of all the world’s leaders since the Russian annexation of Crimea in March. “At the closing of the evening program of the G20 summit [in Brisbane] […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Sam Skove, special to RBTH – November 14, 2014) In recent months, newspapers, radio stations and websites have lost staff while new laws put restrictions on media ownership and advertising. Meanwhile, billions of rubles are being plowed into Kremlin-backed media outlets such as RT and new kid on the block Sputnik. On Nov. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – November 17, 2014) President Vladimir Putin made an early departure Sunday from the two-day G20 Summit in Australia, after fielding an abundance of criticism from Western leaders over Russia’s allegedly aggressive role in the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, a move some observers say will inevitably be interpreted as a symbol of defeat. […]
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(Interfax – November 17, 2014) Russian President Vladimir Putin has once again said that Russia did not commit any violations of international law by incorporating Crimea and described the Western reaction as totally disproportionate to what had happened. “We believe that this sort of reaction was totally disproportionate to what had happened. Whenever I hear complaints about Russia violating international […]
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… 20. Reuters: Ukraine’s main task is to build army to stop Russia: PM Yatseniuk.
21. Bloomberg: Ukraine Default Risk Climbing One Year on From Maidan.
22. The Economist: Ukraine’s economy. Worse to come. The swooning economy is in desperate need of investment.
23. The Economist editorial: The collapse of Ukraine’s economy. Don’t chicken out of Kiev. Throttled by Russia, Ukraine’s economy needs more Western help-especially investment in infrastructure. …
(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Marton Eder – November 13, 2014) Almost one year after the Maidan Square demonstrations began in central Kiev, Ukraine’s record-high borrowing costs are showing how difficult the path toward Europe has become. The yield on Ukraine’s dollar-denominated note due in July 2017 hit a record 17.95 percent yesterday, almost quadruple the average borrowing cost for emerging […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 14 (Interfax) – Russian President Vladimir Putin says it would be useless to initiate a discussion of anti-Russian sanctions at the G20 summit in Australia and denies cooling in relations with German Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel. “If the subject [of sanctions] is raised, I will speak about it, of course, but I am not going to raise these […]
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(RIA Novosti – Donetsk, November 13, 2014) Representative of the DPR [Ukraine’s self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic] at the tripartite negotiations Denys Pushylin [Denis Pushilin] has called for a new meeting of the Minsk Group with the participation of the OSCE, Ukraine and Russia as soon as possible. “We insist that the Minsk Group should meet immediately and invite representatives of […]
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… 17. Interfax-Ukraine: Advisor to SBU chief: There are all signs that Russia is preparing for active hostilities.
18. Wall Street Journal: Ukraine Digs In to Keep Donetsk Airport From Rebels. Villagers Hide in Cellars Amid Daily Barrages From Both Sides.
19. RFE/RL: Robert Coalson, News Analysis: What’s Behind The Resurgence Of Fighting In Eastern Ukraine? …
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – November 13, 2014) The government is revising a program that allows graduates to study abroad at the state’s expense and could limit it to nations and universities that are deemed friendly to Russia, the education minister said, amid worsening relations with the West. “We are now carefully reviewing the list of universities […]
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(Stratfor.com – November 11, 2014) Summary In recent weeks, rumors that Russian Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev will be replaced have been circulating among Russian media and pundits who watch Moscow. Stratfor has been monitoring the Russian government’s coherence and the strength of its leader, President Vladimir Putin, as the country faces a series of crises involving its faltering economy and tensions […]
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(RFE/RL News Analysis – rferl.org – Robert Coalson – November 11, 2014) Fighting in eastern Ukraine — and particularly around the city of Donetsk — has flared up again, more intensely than at any point since the shaky cease-fire was agreed in Minsk on September 5. Journalists and other observers on November 7 reported seeing dozens of military vehicles, including […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, November 13, 2014) Vladimir Putin is proposing the kind of grand bargain to Barack Obama that Hitler proposed to Neville Chamberlain and then to Joseph Stalin, in which the West would accept Russia’s annexation of Crimea in exchange for Moscow’s cooperation on Iran, according to Andrey Illarionov. Chamberlain rejected that bargain but […]
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(Business New Europe/IntelliNews – bne.eu – November 12, 2014) More than half of Russians now believe that the annexation of Crimea and Russia’s support for separatists in eastern Ukraine will lower their standard of living and cause an economic crisis in Russia, but even so they continue to back their government’s actions, according to survey by the Levada Center. The […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – November 12, 2014) In what appears to have been an expertly crafted demonstration of Eastern diplomacy, Chinese President Xi Jinping walked into the 2014 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit on Monday flanked by Presidents Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama. Obama and Putin maintained equally icy demeanors, while Xi – the host of this […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Julia Reed in Moscow – November 12, 2014) Crimes? What crimes? In 1997, the then prime minister of Sweden, Goran Persson, heard on the radio the results of a survey that Swedish youth knew next to nothing about the Holocaust. Outraged by the finding, he got the support of parliament to create a national […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Bryan MacDonald, special to RBTH – November 12, 2014) Bryan MacDonald is an Irish journalist who focusses on Russia and international geopolitics. Are Western and Gulf oil interests ganging up to break Russia? Is the country hopelessly addicted to black gold? Bryan McDonald find the truth is a bit more prosaic. The last […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber – November 12, 2014) The Kremlin strengthened its position in the drawn-out media war with the West this week with the launch of Sputnik, an international multi-platform news agency meant to provide a pro-Russian alternative to Western media coverage, as Russia’s independent media outlets struggle to stay afloat. Sputnik’s launch comes at a […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Allison Quinn – November 13, 2014) Most Russians believe that the country’s state-run news agencies have provided objective coverage of the events unfolding during the Ukraine conflict, a poll by the Levada Center revealed Wednesday. Fifty-nine percent of respondents to the poll, conducted between Oct. 24 and 27, said they disagreed with the notion often […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 13 (Interfax) – The Russian Foreign Ministry has denied the information on Russian military presence in southeastern Ukraine and movements of Russian troops over the Russian-Ukrainian border. “I am telling you totally frankly and officially that there are no military movements across the [Russian-Ukrainian] border, let alone a Russian military presence in southeastern Ukraine,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – bne/IntelliNews – November 13, 2014) The shaky month and half ceasefire in Ukraine seems to be breaking down amid a mounting daily death toll over the past week and reports of Russian “little green men” and soldiers crossing the border into the disputed eastern provinces. Nato reported that columns of Russian tanks, artillery and […]
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ST. PETERSBURG. Nov 13 (Interfax) – The Ukrainian authorities are adamant to integrate with the European Union at any cost and do not wish to think about possible consequences, according to former Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Serhiy Arbuzov. “Western regions have always adhered to European integration because they are attracted to EU member countries culturally and economically. It is a […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 13 (Interfax) – Russian GDP increased by 0.7% year-on-year in Q3 2014, the Federal Statistics Service’s (Rosstat) preliminary estimate published on Thursday said. Rosstat’s data coincided with the calculations of the Economic Development Ministry, which estimated GDP growth in Q3 at 0.7%. Rosstat has not published estimates for GDP growth in January-September. However, based on data for Q1 […]
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… 47. The Interpreter: Executive Summary. The Menace of Unreality: How the Kremlin Weaponizes Information, Culture and Money.
48. Paul Goble: Window on Eurasia: A Russian Maidan Could Take Place Outside of Moscow.
49. The New York Review of Books: Timothy Snyder, Putin’s New Nostalgia. …
… 23. Interfax: Moscow says Silk Road route may go via Russia.
24. Reuters: Russia, China ink framework deal on second major gas supply deal.
25. New York Times: As Russia Draws Closer to China, U.S. Faces a New Challenge. …
(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, November 11, 2014) The Russian political system is so hyper-centralized and Russian political culture is so Moscow-centric that almost all discussions about radical change in that country focus on the capital city and its residents rather than on the rest of what remains the largest country on earth. But there have been […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Allison Quinn – November 11, 2014) The editor-in-chief of business daily Kommersant has resigned, triggering speculation Monday that he was forced out over a recent article in the newspaper about oil giant Rosneft. While theories behind the move multiplied and media reports fluctuated between calling it a dismissal and a resignation, the editor himself, Mikhail […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Christopher A. Stroop, special to RBTH – November 6, 2014) Christopher A. Stroop (Stanford University, Ph.D.) is a senior lecturer at RANEPA and editor of its English-language journal, State, Religion and Church: srch.ranepa.ru. When Christopher A. Stroop began teaching at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration in Moscow, he […]
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Subject: RE: DJ: RIA Novosti is dead. Valdai Discussion Club? Date: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 From: Alexei Ilyichev <a.ilyichev@valdaiclub.com> Dear Mr. Johnson, Valdai Discussion Club is now absolutely independent non-profit organization with no connection to RIA Novosti and its successor Sputnik. So please don’t worry about its fate. Best regards, Alexei Ilyichev Editor www.valdaiclub.com The non-profit Foundation for Development and […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 11 (Interfax) – The decision of the news television station CNN International to end broadcasts in Russia will “deplete” the information picture, head of the Russian presidential Human Rights Council Mikhail Fedotov told Interfax. “This is certainly bad news. The fact that CNN will stop broadcasting in Russia will deplete our information picture very seriously. We would like […]
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(Interfax – November 11, 2014) Russian laws are not stop the CNN television network from broadcasting on cable and satellite channels in Russia, the country’s Communications and Mass Media Ministry said in a press release. “Following the CNN television channel’s announcement that it will soon end broadcasts in Russia, the Communications and Mass Media Ministry of the Russian Federation explains […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – November 11, 2014) Cable news channel CNN will end its broadcasts in Russia starting on Jan.1, after the country passed a law restricting foreign ownership of media outlets. Time Warner, which owns CNN, said it had notified its Russian cable distributors VimpelCom and Akado that it would stop broadcasting in the country by Dec. 31, […]
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UK’s media regulator Ofcom is trying to influence the channel’s editorial policy by wrongly accusing RT of biased coverage of the Ukrainian military conflict, RT Editor-in Chief Margarita Simonyan believes. MOSCOW, November 11 (RIA Novosti) – In accusing RT TV-channel of biased coverage of the Ukrainian conflict, British media regulator Ofcom is trying to influence the channel’s editorial policy, RT […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – November 11, 2014) Britain’s media regulator has threatened to bring sanctions against Russia’s state-run broadcaster RT after ruling that it breached U.K. codes on impartiality in several of its newscasts on Ukraine. In particular, the Ofcom regulator highlighted four RT reports that aired in the run-up to Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in […]
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MOSCOW, November 11 (RIA Novosti) – NATO is set to continue its military pressure on Russia and has held numerous exercises on Russia’s border, a senior Russian Defense Ministry official said Tuesday. “It is evident that our colleagues from NATO are set to continue military pressure on Russia, which… is unlikely to make Europe safer,” Sergei Koshelyev, the head of […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Gleb Fedorov, RBTH – November 5, 2014) RBTH has surveyed the best Russian language teachers abroad about how they teach their students the language. They compare nouns to cats, infinitives to flour and even take their students to the bathhouse to drink mead – all in order for the Russian language not to […]
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(RIA Novosti – Vienna, November 10, 2014) There is no information on the movement of the armed forces of Ukraine in the conflict zone in the east of the country not only in the openly published but also in the full reports of the OSCE monitoring mission, to which Russia has drawn the organization’s attention specially, Andrey Kelin, Russia’s permanent […]
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Subject: Churchill and War with USSR Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 From: Jake Kipp <jacobkipp@cs.com> In May 1945 before he knew about the atomic bomb, Churchill asked the British General Staff under Field Marshal Alan Brooke to do a study of a possible war between attacking British, US, German, and Polish forces against the USSR with a start date of […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Panin – November 11, 2014) Speaking at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum on Monday, President Vladimir Putin vowed that Russia would develop all forms of trade with China, not just hydrocarbon exports. But the second-largest natural gas deal this year signed the previous day with Russia’s Gazprom suggests China is more interested in Russia’s […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – November 11, 2014) Russia’s oil industry runs the risk of repeating the death spiral of the Soviet oil industry, should prices stay below $90, according to research by brokerage Renaissance Capital. If the oil price were to stay well below $90 for long, Russia’s mostly state-owned oil industry could enter self-destruction mode, as it […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Leonid Bershidsky – November 7, 2014) Russia’s present is too unbalanced to discuss, and President Vladimir Putin prefers to rehash the past. That increases the temptation to talk about the distant future, to fathom where the country’s current trajectory is leading. Some smart commentators in Moscow have also given in to this temptation, and their scenarios […]
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(Institute of Modern Russia – imrussia.org) On October 30, the National Endowment for Democracy held a round table discussion entitled “Is Democracy Possible in Russia?” According to participants, in light of current political developments, it appears unlikely that Russia will become a democracy anytime soon. Participants in the National Endowment for Democracy’s (NED) October 30th round table included Lilia Shevtsova, senior […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 11, Issue 199 – Mairbek Vatchagaev – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – November 7, 2014) Reading the Ukrainian media earlier this year gave one the impression that Ukraine was fighting not Russia, but Chechnya (vesti.ru, May 28). Few doubted that Chechens were fighting on the Russian side in eastern Ukraine, but their numbers were greatly exaggerated. […]
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(mccain.senate.gov – November 7, 2014) Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) today released the following statement following reports that Russia has violated its ceasefire agreement and again supplied pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine with military equipment and arms: “No one should be surprised by reports today that large columns of Russian tanks, artillery, and military personnel have moved back […]
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[“The Menace of Unreality: Combatting Russian Disinformation in the 21st Century” – Legatum Institute Events – Oct. 30, 2014] The Legatum Institute hosted a panel discussion with the theme of “The Menace of Unreality: Combatting Russian Disinformation in the 21st Century.” The Legatum Institute reports: Anne Applebaum, Director of the Legatum Institute’s Transitions Forum, moderated a discussion with Geoffrey Pyatt, […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, November 9, 2014) Some Moscow commentators have compared Vladimir Putin’s speech to the Valdai Club meeting in to Winston Churchill’s 1946 “Iron Curtain” speech at Fulton, Missouri, but the Kremlin leader’s remarks in fact are far closer to those delivered by Adolf Hitler to Neville Chamberlain at Berchtesgaden in 1938, according to […]
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