RUSSIA & UKRAINE – Johnson’s Russia List table of contents :: JRL 2016-202 :: Monday, 31 October 2016

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Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2016-#202
Monday, 31 October 2016
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1. Russia Beyond the Headlines/Kommersant: Poll: Nearly half of Russians fear World War III over Syria.
2. Politkom.ru: Russia-US row over Syria not to lead to World War III – pundit. (Alexei Malashenko)
3. Irrussianality: Paul Robinson, CASE CLOSED. (re death of Mikhail Lesin)
4. Russia Direct: What does the future hold for Russian politics? The September parliamentary elections in Russia proved once again that the power of the Russian president and his party remains largely uncontested. But how will this impact Russia’s future political and economic development?
5. TASS: Poll reveals one in three Russians believe in witchcraft.
6. Russia Insider: Paul Goncharoff, The Ease of Doing Halloween à la Russe. The West’s biggest monster this Halloween is Russia, but behind the mask the country is doing absolutely fine.
7. www.opendemocracy.net: Anastasiya Ovsyannikova, How should we talk about abortion in Russia? Abortion is no longer such a lightweight issue as it used to be in Russia. But moves towards banning reflect ultra-conservatives’ desire for a witch-hunt, not changing public attitudes.
8. Washington Post: Daniel Drezner, Five things I learned about Russia last week. I was in Sochi all last week with a healthy fraction of the Russian foreign policy elite. Here’s what I learned.
9. CNN.com: What Putin says vs the expert’s view. (Maria Lipman)
10. Rethinking Russia: Yan Vaslavskiy, Overcoming Babylon.
11. www.rt.com: Bryan MacDonald, Valdai 2016: NATO is biggest barrier to improved relations between Russia & West.
12. Financial Times: Neil Buckley, Russia’s renewed might rests on weak economic foundations. Putin bravado does not extend to modernisation of the economy.
13. Russia International Affairs Council: Alexander Yermakov, The Thin Red Line. (re NATO buildup)
14. AP: Moldovan Presidential Election Goes to Runoff.
15. Russia Direct: Sergey Markedonov, Europe or Russia: Could Moldova’s presidential election determine its future? Moldova goes to the polls to elect a new president at a time of tensions between pro-Russian and pro-EU camps.
16. http://thesaker.is: Jeff Brown, Putin and Xi in Western propaganda – why does XJP get off so lightly? (excerpt)
17. Moscow Times: Gleb Pavlovsky, Russia Has to Be Contained (But So Does Every Superpower)
18. Russia International Affairs Council: U.S. Diplomacy in the Shackles of Election Politics. Interview with Igor Ivanov.
19. www.rt.com: Danielle Ryan, Clinton suggested US should rig a foreign election – but don’t expect the media to care.
20. Wall Street Journal: Russia Welcomes Growing Wave of ‘Red Tourists’ From China. Nostalgia for Communist past as well as capitalist bargain-hunting draw more Chinese visitors.
21. Russia Beyond the Headlines: New research sheds light on Lenin’s mysterious death.
22. RFE/RL: Brian Whitmore, Containment 2.0.
23. Washington Post: Anne Applebaum, Why is Trump suddenly talking about World War III? Putin uses the scare tactics to stay in power – and in Syria – but now Trump is repeating the threats.
24. Paul Goble: Russians Turning Against Putin Regime Thus Making Revolutionary Change More Likely, Solovey Says.
25. New York Times: Garry Kasparov, America, Your Election Is Not Rigged. If Donald Trump wants to know what a fake democracy is, he should visit his friend Vladimir Putin in Russia.