RUSSIA & UKRAINE – Johnson’s Russia List table of contents :: JRL 2016-228 :: Friday, 9 December 2016

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Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2016-#228
Friday, 9 December 2016
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1. TASS: Putin jokingly suggests Russia should develop teleportation.
2. Russia Beyond the Headlines: Poles apart: Can the divisions between Russia and the West be bridged?. Russian and Western experts recently met in Moscow to discuss sensitive issues related to international politics in which Russia cannot find common ground with the U.S. and Europe: the expansion of NATO, the war in Syria and the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
3. Valdai Discussion Club: RUSSIA’S NEW FOREIGN POLICY CONCEPT: WE NEED FRIENDS, NOT ENEMIES. (with Andrey Bystritskiy, Fyodor Lukyanov, Andrei Kortunov, Timofei Bordachev, Oleg Barabanov)
4. Russian International Affairs Council: Sergey Rekeda, Global Issues Overweigh the Allies.
5. Gazeta.ru: Alexander Bratersky, Putin seeks friends. Putin signs edict on new foreign policy concept.
6. Irrussianality: Paul Robinson, Western power. What use is it? (with comments)
7. Standpoint (UK): Tim Congdon, No Need To Fear Russia. The Bear Is Broke.
8. BBC Monitoring: Putin says Russian court rulings make his hair “stand on end”
9. TASS: Putin: Russia won’t allow influence from outside through non-profit organizations.
10. Interfax: Human rights council to continue attempts to improve law on foreign-agent NGOs – Fedotov.
11. Moscow Times: Kremlin Official Admits Problems With Foreign Agent Law. (Sergei Kiriyenko)ro
12. Kremlin.ru: Meeting of the Council for Civil Society and Human Rights.
13. Interfax: Putin presents state awards for achievements in human rights, charity.
14. www.rt.com: Russian elections boss rules out early presidential polls.
15. Vedomosti: Single polling day should be done away with – Russian expert. Political analyst Alexander Kynev on where to start the reform of the electoral legislation.
16. www.rt.com: Khodorkovsky may use unfrozen 100 million euro ‘to compete with Putin’
17. Kremlin.ru: Security Council meeting. Vladimir Putin held a Security Council meeting to discuss the draft Economic Security Strategy.
18. Bloomberg: Putin Caps a Turnaround Year as Rosneft Deal Beats Sanctions.
19. Intellinews.com: Ben Aris, Rosneft privatisation is a coup for the Kremlin, less so for Sechin.ad
20. Wall Street Journal: German Firms Place New Bets on Russia. Undeterred by sanctions and optimistic about Donald Trump, German companies are rushing back in, hopeful for an economic recovery.
21. Forbes.com: Nabi Abdullaev, Why Russia’s LinkedIn Ban Is Not About Internet Freedoms.
22. Rethinking Russia: International law is not a means of exercising global ideological pressure by “civilized” states. (Oleg Denisov)
23. Russia Direct: Pavel Koshkin, Diplomacy vs. ‘hypocrisy’ in the post-Cold War era. At a roundtable event in Moscow, top experts debated the “hypocritical” and “insincere” foreign policies of both Russia and the West in the post-Cold War era.
24. The National Interest: Nikolas K. Gvosdev, Nuclear War Is No Longer “Unthinkable” for Russia. Putin is warning the United States to back off.
25. TASS: Diplomat: Both Republicans and Democrats would back Russian and US efforts to improve ties. (Alexander Vershbow)
26. The National Interest/Carnegie Corporation: Thomas Pickering, First, Do No Harm. Washington and Moscow must both tone down and tune out the unhelpful public statements.
27. The National Interest/Carnegie Corporation: Julie Newton, Trump Must Learn from Past Mistakes on Russia.A future administration should avoid provocation and emphasize shared interests.
28. TASS: General Staff: Syrian army takes control of 93% of Aleppo’s territory.
29. http://theduran.com: Alexander Mercouris, Lavrov confirms: no ceasefire in Aleppo; attacks on Jihadi fighters to continue until all eliminated. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov complaints about misrepresentation of his words of the previous day; confirms that there is no ceasefire in Aleppo and that objective remains total elimination of Jihadi controlled pocket in the city.
30. Rethinking Russia: The Battle for Syria. Interview with Christopher Phillips of Chatham House.
31. The Guardian (UK): Alec Luhn, My hunting trip with Yeltsin killed off the Soviet Union. Belarusian politician recalls his role 25 years ago in reaching deal that led to breakup of USSR without major bloodshed. (Stanislav Shushkevich)
32. The Siberian Times: ‘My grandfather executed your great grandfather’: history spills into present. Painful reality and emotional ‘forgiveness’ after Tomsk man tracks down modern relatives of his ancestor’s NKVD secret police killer.
33. Russia Beyond the Headlines/TASS: Leonid Yuzefovich is named best Russian writer of 2016. Russia’s leading literary prize has been awarded to a sparse novel that presents a snapshot of Russian history.
34. Awful Avalanche: The Decline And Fall Of The KGB – Part V.
35. Awful Avalanche: The Decline And Fall Of The KGB – Part VI.
36. The Economist: The motherlands calls. Russian propaganda is state-of-the-art again. As in the 1930s, Moscow is a beacon for an international movement.
37. New York Times: Foes of Russia Say Child Pornography Is Planted to Ruin Them.
38. Washington Post: Russian editor says, ‘Don’t call me Kremlin propaganda.’ (re Russia Direct)
39. Washingtonian.com: Washington Post Appends Editor’s Note to Russian Propaganda Story.
40. Dances With Bears: John Helmer, AMAZON.COM ANNOUNCES ALL PRODUCTS MAY BE DEFECTIVE – RUSSIAN FAKE NEWS AND KREMLIN PROPAGANDA TO BLAME FOR FUTURE BILLION-DOLLAR COLLAPSE OF SALES, SHARE PRICE.
41. Alternet.org: Mark Ames, The Anonymous Blacklist Promoted by the Washington Post Has Apparent Ties to Ukrainian Fascism and CIA Spying. Digging deeper into the PropOrNot controversy.
42. UN News Centre: Conflict in Ukraine continues to take civilian toll – UN human rights report.