RUSSIA & UKRAINE – Johnson’s Russia List table of contents :: JRL 2018-29 :: Friday, 9 February 2018

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Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2018-#29
Friday, 9 February 2018
A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs
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1. The Root: Terrell Jermaine Starr, Russia Is Boring.
2. TASS: Putin expects Russia will achieve normal relations with West.
3. Christian Science Monitor: Fred Weir, US policy doc hints at ‘limited’ nuclear arms use, alarming Russians. Russians read a new Pentagon policy document as allowing the use of nuclear weapons outside the bounds of ‘mutually assured destruction’ – a change to decades of nuclear arms philosophy that makes US-Russia relations more uncertain.
4. Valdai Discussion Club: Dmitry Suslov, MILITARIZING THE CONFRONTATION: RISKS OF THE NEW US NUCLEAR POSTURE REVIEW.
5. http://theduran.com: Alexander Mercouris, CONFIRMED: US admits ‘unipolar moment’ is over. Review admits ‘Great Power competition’ has returned. [Text with links http://theduran.com/the-us-nuclear-posture-review-us-admits-unipolar-moment-is-over/]
6. Kremlin.ru: Meeting of the Council for Science and Education.
7. Meduza: Russia’s federal election commissioner is peeved about all the non-binding referendums planned on March 18.
8. The Economist: The approved challenger. Russian TV star Ksenia Sobchak’s presidential campaign. An unintended puff for Mr Putin.
9. Russiafeed.com: America-Gate? Presidential candidate Sobchak travels to US, colludes with anti-Russian NGOs.
10. CNN.com: Putin challenger apologizes for US election meddling.
11. TASS: Izvestia: Russian lawmakers to report on foreign interference in presidential election.
12. The Baffler: Natalia Antonova, Russia’s Zombie Election. The Russian election is a horrorshow put on by an undead political system.
13. The Daily Beast: Amy Knight, FEAR FOR ALL. Putin’s Opposition Stabbed, Bludgeoned, Burned, Even Attacked With Poison Gas. The police response to these attacks is predictable. Either assailants are never identified, or they are said to have had a personal, not a political, motive.
14. www.opendemocracy.net: Svetlana Sidorkina: “Defending the innocent is the most difficult thing of all.” Svetlana Sidorkina is one of Russia’s leading human rights lawyers. Here, she talks about how the Russian justice system is hard to beat.
15. Moskovsky Komsomolets: Daily discusses emigre businessmen seeking return to Russia.
16. TASS: Olympic athletes from Russia take part in Winter Games opening ceremony.
17. Interfax: Global anti-doping system reform needed, IOC president resignation not on agenda – Duma committee head.
18. Moscow Times: Vladimir Frolov. Why the Directors of Russia’s Intelligence Agencies Visited Washington. Secret meetings between the U.S. and Russia are the best hope for restoring relations.
19. Russia Matters: George Beebe, Cooperate to Deescalate: Working With Russia Against Terrorism Will Make America Safer.
20. Moskovsky Komsomolets: Russian daily views ‘delay’ in implementation of new US sanctions.
21. www.rt.com: Russian deputy FM opposes US participation in Donbass settlement talks.
22. Counterpunch.org: Louis Proyect, The Tortured State of Ukrainian Society.
23. Bloomberg: Eli Lake, Ukraine’s Top Spy Is Pleased With Trump. The president’s Putin-friendly noises don’t drown out the sounds of military aid and intelligence cooperation.
24. www.rt.com: Resistance is futile: Tillerson says unstoppable Russians already meddling in midterms.
25. The Hill: Brent Budowsky, Urgent hearings needed to expose Russian midterm attack.
26. Consortiumnews.com: Coleen Rowley and Nat Parry, ‘This is Nuts’: Liberals Launch ‘Largest Mobilization in History’ in Defense of Russiagate Probe. Hundreds of thousands have pledged to take to the streets if Special Counsel Robert Mueller is removed, reflecting misplaced priorities and some fundamental misunderstandings.
27. Wall Street Journal: Kimberley Strassel, Who Is Christopher Steele? The man who revealed a vast international conspiracy but didn’t know his own client.
28. OffGuardian: BOOK REVIEW: Frank Lee reviews Russia against the rest: the post-cold war crisis of world order by Richard Sakwa. [https://off-guardian.org/2018/02/09/book-review-russia-against-the-rest-the-post-cold-war-crisis-of-world-order/]

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