RUSSIA & UKRAINE – Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2016-13 :: Wednesday, 20 January 2016

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Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2016-#13
Wednesday 20 January 2016
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. www.rt.com: Gorbachev urges Russians to unite in the face of ongoing economic crisis.
2. Russia Beyond the Headlines/Vzglad: Who is Putin talking to? Analyst attempts to put president’s recent interview in context.
3. Russia Direct: What do the Kremlin and the Russian opposition have in common? Leonid Gozman, democratic activist and a fellow of the National Endowment for Democracy, discusses with Russia Direct the challenges of the Russian opposition and the Kremlin’s inner circle.
4. TASS: Putin: Russian business “survives”, coping with crisis conditions.
5. Kremlin.ru: National Entrepreneurs’ Forum Small Business – National Idea?
6. Kremlin.ru: Meeting on the Advanced Research Fund’s development.
7. Russia Beyond the Headlines/Gazeta.ru: Bloomberg says Russia one of world’s top 15 most innovative economies.
8. Russia Beyond the Headlines/RBC Daily: At what point are oil prices too low for firms to survive? With Iran returning to the market, the price of oil has fallen below $30 per barrel. But Russian oil companies aren’t worried – they say they won’t start experiencing any problems until prices get down to $15 per barrel.
9. Forbes.com: Mark Adomanis, Don’t Expect Russia To Slash Oil Production, At Least Willingly.
10. Russia Beyond the Headlines/Expert: Capital outflow from Russia decreases almost threefold. Due to exchange rates much safer bet to invest inside the country.
11. TASS: Experts divided on prospects of Russian state property privatization amid crisis.
12. Interfax: Russia identifies economic backwardness as national security threat.
13. CNBC.com: Russia crisis is ‘controllable’: Wealth fund head. (Kirill Dmitriev)
14. Chatham House: Nigel Gould-Davies, Russia’s Sovereign Globalization: Rise, Fall and Future. The failure of Russia’s experiment with sovereign globalization encourages pessimism about Russia’s prospects but optimism about globalization.
15. Pravda.ru: USSR collapsed because of oil prices heralding Russia’s future?
16. New Republic: Jason Motlagh, Fighting Putin Doesn’t Make You a Saint. Hedge fund star Bill Browder has been a strident anti-Putin voice. But why won’t he testify about Russian wrongdoing?
17. Interfax: Confrontation between Chechnya leadership, non-systemic opposition causes concern, exchange of insults cannot solve political problems – Pamfilova.
18. Paul Goble: If Putin Sacks Kadyrov, He Could Lose the North Caucasus; If He Doesn’t, He Could Lose Russia.
19. Washington Post: In Russia, rhetoric from Putin ally stokes fear of new assassinations.
20. http://readrussia.com: Mark Galeotti, Fix Russia’s ****ing Prison System.
21. www.rt.com: Kremlin top brass bails on Davos.
22. Vedomosti: Russian experts differ on future of Moscow-Tehran partnership.
23. Bloomberg: U.S., Russia Start Syria Negotiations Amid Threat to Peace Talks.
24. Interfax: Gorbachev: Russian-U.S. summit needed for settling crisis in Ukraine.
25. Interfax: Peskov: Surkov, Nuland hold expert dialogue on settlement in Ukraine.
26. Russia Direct: Ivan Tsvetkov, It’s too early to talk about an improvement in US-Russia relations. There is little reason to be optimistic about a rapprochement between the U.S. and Russia, even after a high-profile diplomatic meeting in Kaliningrad to discuss Ukraine.
27. Russia Insider: Eduard Limonov, Trump or Hillary – Who’s the Lesser of Two Evils for Russia? Trump’s a ‘cynical sheriff’ while Hillary’s a….well
28. www.rt.com: Putin offers Russian refuge to European Jews facing anti-Semitism.
29. Index on Censorship: Ukraine: Journalists face violence on all fronts.
30. New Eastern Europe: Balazs Jarabik, Reform and resistance: Ukraine’s selective state.
31. Facebook: Ivan Katchanovski, Ukrainian Refugees.
32. Inter Press Service: Yulia Beret, Can Russia handle the flood of Ukrainian immigrants?