RUSSIA & UKRAINE – Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#248 :: Tuesday 22 December 2015

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Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#248
Tuesday 22 December 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
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RUSSIA

1. www.rt.com: West fears recreation of Soviet Union, despite nobody planning one – Putin.
2. Rossiya 1 TV: Putin interviewed at length in Russian TV film “World Order”
3. Russia Direct: In search of what’s next for Syria, Ukraine and the Russian economy. Russian media roundup: Putin’s annual press conference, the UN resolution on Syria, Ukraine’s debt moratorium, and the prolongation of sanctions against Russia all made headlines this week.
4. Russia Beyond the Headlines: Russia’s nascent middle class feels the squeeze in economic crisis. Russia’s middle class, which was growing in the early 2000s, has born the brunt of the economic downturn along with small-business owners.
5. Bloomberg: Another False Start for Russia as Oil Spells Longer Recession.
6. Russia Beyond the Headlines: Bryan MacDonald, Russia avoids revolution again. Naysayers are keen to predict Russia’s demise, but despite a difficult year politically and economically, the country has failed to fall apart.
7. Russia Beyond the Headlines: From tabloids to state-run dailies: A tour of the Russian press.
8. RFE/RL: In Forgotten Karelian Village, Frustration With Moscow Runs High.
9. www.rt.com: Searches conducted in homes of Khodorkovsky’s Open Russia movement members.
10. Interfax: Magnitsky’s mother asks Chaika to confirm publicized facts concerning her son.
11. Russia Direct: What factors will determine Russian foreign policy in 2016? Russia Direct presents its new end of the year report, which analyzes the main results of Russian foreign policy over the past year and makes forecasts for Moscow’s strategy in 2016.
12. Interfax: Expert skeptical on prospects of getting information from Su-24 black box.
13. Russia Insider: David Macilwain, Get Used to It – Assad’s Not Going Anywhere! The Western public just has to get used to it – Assad’s not going anywhere, and not because of what Russia or Iran says, but because he’s Syrians’ choice.
14. Washington Post editorial: A U.N. resolution on Syria is shattered – and Russia is to blame.
15. Russia Direct: What Russia must do to find common ground with the West in 2016. Russia Direct continues to publish interviews with prominent Western experts who participated in the 2015 convention of the Association of Slavic, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES). This time, RD sat down with University of Toronto’s Aurel Braun to discuss Russian foreign policy in 2015-2016 and its complicated relations with the West.
16. www.opendemocracy.net: Morena Skalamera, Sino-Russian energy relations reversed: a new little brother. Don’t be fooled. Russia’s growing ties to China may not be what they seem.
17. Novaya Gazeta: Russian-US relations seen improving following Kerry-Putin talks. (Kirill Martynov)
18. Izvestia: Russian analyst views return of US neoconservative ideology. (Dmitriy Drobnitskiy)
19. Washington Times: Edward Lozansky, Does America have any leaders left? Where is the new American leader who can inspire the country and the world to save civilization?
20. MTV.com: Pussy Riot Warns That Trump – Like Putin – Is No Laughing Matter. ‘Everybody was joking about it’ when Putin first came into power, too.
21. The Unz Report: Anatoly Karlin, Trump Is Factually Right on Putin and Journalists.
22. Washington Post: Adam Tayler, The complicated reality behind Trump’s claim that there’s no proof Putin had journalists killed.
23. Russia Insider: Lisa Marie White, That Time Vladimir Putin Endorsed Barack Obama. That awkward moment.
24. www.rt.com: Putin ‘endorsing’ Trump – ‘twofer for American media’
25. The National Interest: Robert Merry, What Trump Gets Right About Putin. The GOP frontrunner somehow sees what the vast majority of establishment denizens can’t seem to perceive.
26. Russia Insider: Patrick Armstrong, A Brief Compendium of Nonsense About Putin. Brief? I had to force myself to stop at vampire rumours. I mean, what’s next? Darth Vader (AARGHH! He is).