RUSSIA & UKRAINE – Johnson’s Russia List table of contents :: JRL 2017-11 :: Friday, 13 January 2017

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Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2017-#11
Friday, 13 January 2017
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1. www.rt.com: FBI denied access to hacked DNC servers – ‘shocking.’ (Jeffrey Carr)
2. The Observer: Ukraine Tried to Tip the Election in Clinton’s Favor. Evidence reveals that Ukraine intervened to tilt the election in favor of its national interests.
3. Global Times: Dmitri Trenin, National interest, the same language of Beijing, Washington and Moscow.
4. New York Times: Max Boot, Donald Trump: A Modern Manchurian Candidate?
5. Moscow Times: Russia Says It Plans to Pivot From Nuclear Deterrence, Avoiding Trump’s Arms Race.
6. The Guardian (UK): Mary Dejevsky, Why is MI5 making such a fuss about Russia? Putin may have played a weak hand well, but it’s still a weak hand. Here are a few reasons Andrew Parker might be keen to maintain Russia’s position as bogeyman-in-chief. (re Director General of MI-5. Colleague of Christopher Steele)
7. Russia Insider: BREAKING: RT’s Live Report from Moscow Hotel Room in CNN’s Trump Smear (Video)
8. National Review: David Satter, The ‘Trump Report’ Is a Russian Provocation. It is part of Russia’s strategy to disrupt U.S. politics and institutions for years to come.
9. Christian Science Monitor: Fred Weir, Why Russia’s Kremlin watchers take Trump dossier with a grain of salt.In Russia, there is no shortage of rumor around the Kremlin and the goings on of its residents. And for many in the business of verifying that rumor, the Trump dossier provides a lot of reason to doubt its assertions.
10. Izvestia: Russian pundit sees “fakes” in US election hacking report. (Vladimir Bruter)
11. Lawfare: Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes, Why Are the Trump Allegations Hanging Around When They Haven’t Been Substantiated?
12. Rolling Stone: Matt Taibbi, The Russia Story Reaches a Crisis Point. If Donald Trump really is compromised, we need immediate action, not media overreach.
13. London School of Economics : Andrei Tsygankov, The US establishment, not the Kremlin, is undermining normalisation with Russia.
14. Irrussianality: Paul Robinson, TOP SECRET CREDULOUS EYES ONLY.
15. Moscow Times: Ola Cichowlas, Golden Skepticism. Wild allegations in unverified Trump dossier fail to impress Kremlin critics and supporters alike.
16. Counterpunch.org: Gerald Sussman, America’s Russian Dybbuk.
17. Russia Matters: Team Trump on Russia: Words and Actions.
18. Indian Punchline: M K Bhadrakumar, Tillerson’s US senate hearing sets benchmarks on Russia policies.
19. Russia Beyond the Headlines: Tillerson to pass Senate without Russian policy commitment, says analyst. Rex Tillerson will pass the Senate confirmation hearing with minimal commitment to any particular policy towards Russia, says New York-based expert.
20. Russia Direct: Dmitry Shlapentokh, Donald Trump’s election and Russian public opinion. Based on how Russians reacted to the election of Donald Trump, it’s clear that liberals and conservatives have very different notions of “populism” and “democracy”.
21. Russia Beyond the Headlines: Was Trump lured into a Russian ‘honey trap”? American media now claim that Russian secret services have compromising material on U.S. president-elect Donald Trump. Russian security experts, however, say it’s highly unlikely that a foreign private investigator would be able to ascertain its existence.
22. www.rt.com: ‘It’s fake news’: Russian IT expert responds to unverified report alleging ties to Trump & Kremlin. (Aleksey Gubarev)
23. PBS Newshour: What kind of threat does Russia pose to the U.S.? (with Evelyn Farkas and Michael McFaul)
24. Counterpunch.org: Gregory Elich, Did the Russians Really Hack the DNC?
25. TASS: IMF: Russia managed to avoid serious economic instability.
26. TASS: Former finance minister believes Russia’s economic growth rates can exceed 3% by 2019. (Kudrin)
27. Government.ru: The 8th Gaidar Forum. (Medvedev)
28. Reuters: World Bank tells Russia to diversify, attract investors.
29. Rossiyskaya Gazeta: Expert views Russia’s economic development scenarios in 2017. (Yakov Mirkin)
30. New York Times: Russian Proposal Would Phase In Cigarette Ban, but Current Smokers Get a Pass.
31. Russia Beyond the Headlines: What the Russian Orthodox Church can teach the West. Rowan Williams, who as Archbishop of Canterbury was head of the Church of England from 2002 to 2012, tells RBTH of his lifelong love for Russian religion and culture.