(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Matthew Bodner – July 28, 2015) President Vladimir Putin on Sunday approved amendments to Russia’s naval doctrine that prioritize the development of Russian positions in strategic seas around the world, according to the Kremlin website. The updated doctrine takes advantage of a huge injection of funds into Russia’s naval strength to shift the emphasis of […]
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(Interfax – July 28, 2015) The United States’ National Endowment for Democracy has been declared an unwelcome foreign organization on Russian territory, the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office announced on July 28. “Russian Deputy Prosecutor General Vladimir Malinovsky signed a resolution declaring the National Endowment for Democracy an unwelcome foreign nongovernmental organization (NGO) on Russian territory,” the agency said. The activity […]
» Read moreJohnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#143 Tuesday 28 July 2015 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs The contents do not necessarily represent the views of IERES or the George Washington University. JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php Support for JRL is provided in part by […]
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Reuters covers the restructuring of Ukrainian debt. Heavily indebted Ukraine has made new proposals to its creditors for restructuring $23 billion of foreign debt and is now awaiting their response …. *** The IMF has brought relief to Ukraine by saying it will disburse $1.7 billion in fresh funds under a $17.5 bailout package irrespective of a restructuring deal being […]
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Writing for Chatham House, James Sherr addresses Western support for Ukraine admidst the Russo-Ukrainian War. … the West has acted on the premise that economic sanctions would induce Russia to modify its actions. But while sanctions do constrain capacity, they do not constrain behaviour. Their immediate impact is bearable … they do nothing to diminish Russia’s most usable and effective form of power: military force. […]
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The Christian Science Monitor covers some of the interplay in Kaliningrad between Germanic cultural history and more recent Russian control, amidst Russia’s tensions with the West over Ukraine. … a growing movement of mainly younger Kaliningraders – supported by local government – … are working to roll back the Soviet-imposed amnesia that convinced generations of people who grew up on this ancient territory […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Monica Ellena in Yerevan – July 27, 2015) The intricate mandala that Lidia painted no longer adorns the boiling tarmac in Marshal Baghramyan Avenue. The whirling white-chalked pattern got washed away as the Armenian police dismantled a nearby makeshift barricade of rubbish bins and pushed away a few hard-core demonstrators, who were camping a […]
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KYIV. July 27 (Interfax) – Ukraine does not receive appropriate financial aid from Western countries, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said. “We are grateful for the existing level of support but it is necessary to admit that we are awfully underfinanced,” Yatsenyuk said during a board meeting of the Finance Ministry in Kyiv on Monday. According to the prime minister, […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Ben Aris in Moscow and Nick Allen in Berlin – July 27, 2015) The Electric Yerevan protests in Armenia burned brightly before police finally quashed them in early July. But the issue of electricity tariffs that sparked the protests will not go away: nearly half the countries in Emerging Europe also face a similarly […]
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(Interfax – July 24, 2015) Russia will be developing its economic and trade policies assuming that the United States may keep the sanctions it imposed on Russia over the Ukraine crisis for many more years, Prime Minister Dmitriy Medvedev has said. Interfax news agency quoted Medvedev as saying in an interview to the Slovenian newspaper DELO ahead of a visit […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Evan Haddad – July 27, 2015) A recent article published in British weekly Times Higher Education revealed that one in seven Russian undergraduates admits to cheating on exams. The figure is probably much higher. Any expat in Moscow teaching English will confirm that. Cheating in the Russian educational system is rampant, even acceptable. I experienced […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – July 25, 2015) [Chart here themoscowtimes.com/news/article/most-russians-oppose-renaming-bridge-after-nemtsov-poll-shows/526170.html] The majority of respondents in a survey conducted by Russian independent pollster Levada Center opposed the proposal to rename Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge after murdered opposition figure Boris Nemtsov. After the murder, an unofficial memorial was set up on the bridge, which was where Nemtsov was shot last February, with […]
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(Voice of America – Mark Snowiss – July 24, 2015) Ukraine’s former intelligence chief says Russia is financing and organizing training camps from within Ukraine’s rebel-controlled eastern provinces in order to destabilize the country. “Up to 30 camps in Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea are training subversive groups, providing them with weapons and sending them on missions throughout Ukraine,” said Valentyn […]
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(Interfax – July 27, 2015) Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov has called for the resumption of bilateral cooperation between Russia and the U.S. on counterterrorism, saying he intends to discuss it with his American colleagues. In an interview published in the July 27 edition of Kommersant, Syromolotov said it is important to “think about resuming direct bilateral cooperation on […]
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NOVOSIBIRSK. July 27 (Interfax) – The rally permitted by the Novosibirsk mayor’s office of the supporters of the People’s Freedom Party For Russia Without Lawlessness and Corruption (PARNAS) is taking place in front of the Novosibirsk region’s government building on Monday, an Interfax correspondent reported. Five people are declared to participate in the rally, event organizer Vadim Sukhonenko said. “One […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – MOSCOW, July 26, 2015) Three years into President Vladimir Putin’s third term and a renewed effort to banish conspicuous political dissent in Russia, local protests are bubbling up all over the capital. From weekslong sit-ins to save neighborhood parks to pushback against development plans with ties to the political elite, Muscovites are taking their frustrations to […]
» Read moreJohnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#142 Monday 27 July 2015 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs The contents do not necessarily represent the views of IERES or the George Washington University. JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php Support for JRL is provided in part by a […]
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Russia’s plans to drop Ukraine as a route for pumping natural gas to Europe will still leave state-run Gazprom facing about $1 billion in annual transit fees to Slovakia and Bulgaria for years to come, analysts and industry sources say.
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Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Stephen Hadley and Robert Zoellick address the issue of Western assistance for Ukraine amidst the Russo-Ukrainian War, including financial and debt-related assistance. Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is an assault on the vision that emerged from the end of the Cold War of a Europe whole, free and at peace. For that vision to be realized, the […]
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Interfax-AVN covers comments on U.S. missile defense by the Russian military. The circle of participants of the United States global missile shield is expanding, Col. Gen. Viktor Yesin, a consultant to the Commander of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces (RVSN), told a press conference …. ‘… At present, parts of the U.S. global missile defense system are deployed on the Danish island […]
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AFP reports on involvement in the Ukrainian political scene by Maria Gaidar, daughter of former Russian prime minister Yegor Gaidar. She is nominated to work with former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili. The nomination of a Russian politician to a top post in Odessa has caused a flurry of controversy in the tense political atmosphere of the violent Ukraine conflict. Maria Gaidar, daughter […]
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AFP covers U.S.-Ukrainian relations and recent military drills near Ukraine’s border with Poland. Ukrainian and US troops launched fresh drills Monday near the war-torn country’s Polish border in a bid to show unity and resolve in the face of an increasingly resurgent Kremlin. The annual Rapid Trident exercises involve 1,800 soldiers from 18 countries and last for just under two […]
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With a new-found reputation for radicalism, Ukrainian politics is in flux. The left, however, are nowhere to be seen. (opendemocracy.net – Denys Gorbach – July 24, 2015) Denys Gorbach is a Ukrainian journalist and economic analyst writing on economy, energy, political and social issues. He is a member of the Autonomous Workers’ Union. The events of the past two years-the […]
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As the Russian state continues its conservative turn, could this fringe sport push back against the country’s gender politics? (opendemocracy.net – Ulrike Ziemer – July 23, 2015) Dr Ulrike Ziemer is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Winchester. Her research focuses on gender inequalities and young people from ethnic minorities in Russia. Recent publications include a monograph Ethnic […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – July 24, 2015) Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said he expects Russia’s recession-hit economy to start growing again at the end of the year, while he hopes for improving economic ties with friendly countries in southeastern Europe. “I think that the economy will return to the path of growth in late 2015, early 2016. It won’t […]
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(Interfax – July 24, 2015) Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has said that the United States can help the peace process in Ukraine, and that he welcomes contact between Moscow and Washington on the issue. “I believe that several countries currently play an important role. The United States can also help promote this process, because the US is a major […]
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(Ivan Katchanovski – Facebook – July 22, 2015 – also appeared at facebook.com/ivan.katchanovski/posts/1064562830240269) [entire facebook post set to appear below … click “See More” to open up full post … loading might take longer for some users] [fb_embed_post href=”https://www.facebook.com/ivan.katchanovski/posts/1064562830240269″ width=”100%”/] [featured image is file photo, not directly related to timing of events described in article]
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KYIV. July 23 (Interfax) – After amendments to the Ukrainian constitution aimed at decentralizing the governance system take effect, Ukraine will hold new local elections, Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk said. “After the constitutional amendments take effect, we will hold elections for local self-government bodies again, because these constitutional amendments invest territorial communities with absolutely different powers,” Yatsenyuk said at a […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – July 23, 2015) A local court has sided with a Russian chocolate factory owned by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in a dispute with the tax authorities, news agency RIA Novosti reported Wednesday citing a court statement. The decision is a rare victory for the Roshen Confectionary Factory in Lipetsk, about 440 kilometers south of Moscow, […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, July 23, 2015) Vladimir Putin has successfully counted on the war he launched in Ukraine to distract the attention of Russians from their problems at home, but if Russians are to emerge from the current crisis and save their own country, they will have to “forget about Ukraine” and focus on Russia […]
» Read moreJohnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#141 Friday 24 July 2015 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs The contents do not necessarily represent the views of IERES or the George Washington University. JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php Support for JRL is provided in part by […]
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Writing for CNN.com, Matthew Rojansky and Michael Kofman address historic shifts in relations between Russia and the West, amidst Western reactions to the Russo-Ukrainian War, the downing of civilian airliner MH-17 and other developments. … MH17 was a turning point, after which many European leaders abandoned their previously held view that Russia could be successfully integrated into Western-led economic, political, or […]
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Writing in The Moscow Times, Mark Galeotti comments on U.S. threat assessments of Russia. Suddenly, it seems, America has decided that Russia is a threat, even an existential one. Really? Air Force Secretary Deborah James said: ‘I do consider Russia to be the biggest threat.’ Nonetheless, she comes across as positively dovish alongside with House Armed Services Committee […]
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MOSCOW. July 24 (Interfax) – Moscow is ready to start work to bring closer the viewpoints of Malaysia and Russia in regard to the investigation of the Malaysian Boeing 777 crash in Ukraine, Russian Ambassador to Malaysia Valery Yermolov said. The text of the ambassador’s speech on the Boeing 777 tragedy and situation concerning the attempts to form an international […]
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(RIA Novosti – July 23, 2015) The possible supply of artillery-locator radar systems by the United States to Ukraine could treble the effectiveness of the Ukrainian Army in artillery battles with the separatist militias, but will require direct involvement in the war by US troops, the president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, Konstantin Sivkov, has said, RIA Novosti (part […]
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The New York Times covers online local coverage of the Russo-Ukrainian War in eastern Ukraine. As Luhansk’s prospects looked ever bleaker, Mr. Pavlov and Mr. Kryukov emerged as quirky but candid guides to an unfamiliar war zone, an Internet voice for locals who drop their Russian g’s in homegrown accents and were stunned by the sudden outbreak of violence in […]
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The Independent covers comments by Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk about the Russo-Ukrainian War and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s policies towards Ukraine. The Prime Minister of Ukraine has claimed that Vladimir Putin is trying to ‘eliminate Ukraine’ as conflict continues between government troops and rebels. Russia has persistently denied supporting separatist fighters … but Arseniy Yatsenyuk said there was irrefutable evidence of […]
» Read moreJohnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#140 Thursday 23 July 2015 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs The contents do not necessarily represent the views of IERES or the George Washington University. JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php Support for JRL is provided in part by […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Aleksandra Efimova, special to RBTH – July 13, 2015) I recently spoke with three young entrepreneurs, each born in the Soviet Union. I wanted to discover if these sharp and accomplished young businesspeople shared common threads that could be followed back to their Soviet origins. Leon Oks, founder of iCanvas, is 34 years […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – John Freedman – July 23, 2015) Words can be fashionable. They may be dangerous. The word of this year in Russian culture, I would argue, has shades of both. The lexical item of “obscurantism”-“mrakobesie” in Russian, suggesting demonic murk and gloom – is everywhere to be found in discussions of art these days. “In […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Nick Allen in Berlin – July 23, 2015) With President Vladimir Putin’s executive fist dominating the ‘vertical of power’, while parliament toes the Kremlin line, it’s easy to forget Russia’s heyday of real rough-and-tumble oppositional party politics in the first years after the Soviet collapse. So defiant from the outset was the legislature, still […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – July 23, 2015) Most of Russia’s single-industry towns are at risk of economic collapse that would cause massive social dislocation and see millions of Russians lose their livelihoods, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was quoted as saying Wednesday. Some 14 million Russians live in the 319 Russian towns that, in a holdover from the Soviet era, […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – July 14, 2015) Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law giving small companies a three-year holiday from regular inspections, a measure lawmakers hope will spur the development of small business in the country, according to a document published Tuesday [14 July] on the government’s legal information website. Small business is relatively underdeveloped in Russia, […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Francesca Moll in London – July 23, 2015) Most Russians believe that the country’s millionaires earned their money dishonestly, according to a recent survey. In a survey by the independent pollster Levada Centre, an overwhelming 70% of respondents answered “no” when asked if they thought you can earn millions of rubles honestly now in […]
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(Interfax – July 22, 2015) A number of Russian human rights advocacy organizations have lodged court appeals against their classification as “foreign agents”, privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax reported on 22 July. Earlier the Russian Justice Ministry released a statement saying it had sent messages to a number of NGOs working in the human rights sector and included on the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – July 23, 2015) The Justice Ministry is revoking the registration of election-monitoring group Golos as a “foreign agent” and has refunded the fines the non-governmental organization has paid for refusing to register voluntarily, the group said. In a surprise announcement that followed searches at the organization’s offices and its employees’ homes earlier […]
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Ukraine Today reports on Ukrainian intelligence threat assessments regarding Russian or Russia-backed forces. … Poroshenko says military intelligence officials have confirmed … Russia could rapidly launch a fresh invasion … at any moment …. Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine has warned … Russia had completed … preperations to launch a massive new invasion in three different directions along the contact line … in the Donbas. … […]
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Our guest today is Dr. Nicolai Petro. Dr. Petro is a professor of political science at the University of Rhode Island, specializing in Russia and its neighboring states. He has previously served in the Office of Soviet Union Affairs in the U.S. Department of State and at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and has held fellowships at the Council on […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Anna Sorokina, RBTH, combined report – July 22, 2015) The U.S.-based MacArthur Foundation has announced that it is to cease its work in Russia in connection with new legislation that seeks to limit the activities of foreign organizations seen as a threat to national security. The MacArthur NGO, which receives no funding from […]
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