RUSSIA & UKRAINE – Johnson’s Russia List table of contents :: JRL 2017-164 :: Monday, 28 August 2017
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Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2017-#164
Monday, 28 August 2017
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1. Intellinews.com: Russians who think the country is going in the right direction at two year high.
2. Intellinews.com: Ben Aris, Russia’s government moves from war budget to election budget.
3. TASS: Nezavisimaya Gazeta: One-third of Russian enterprises reports losses.
4. Bloomberg: Putin’s New Favorite Official Plans Ministry of Future to Revamp Economy. (Maxim Oreshkin)
5. Carnegie Moscow Center: Alexei Navalny’s Techno-Populism. Is opposition leader Alexei Navalny a “Kremlin project,” a “future tyrant,” or “Russia’s only hope?” Conversations about Navalny often proceed along these moral lines, though it is Navalny’s practicality-especially in the technological realm-that has been the driving force of his popularity.
6. The Russian Reader/Republic.ru: Black Lists and Total Monitoring: Agora’s New Report on the Surveillance of Russians.
7. Moscow Times: John Freedman, The Show Trial of a Russian Theater Director. If it is not clear by now, let me say it in no uncertain terms: The Serebrennikov case is a show trial.
8. Russian and Eurasian Studies: Gordon Hahn, Putin, Stalin, Orthodoxy, and Russian Traditionalism.
9. Between Two Worlds: The “Art” of an American Surviving in Small Town Russia: HISTORY, MEMORIALS & MONUMENTS: PUTIN’S SOLUTION.
10. Fort Russ: Padraig Joseph McGrath, Irish Crimean: On Russian Forthrightness.
11. AP: Stalingrad History a Constant Presence for World Cup Workers.
12. TASS: Russian Defense Ministry reveals declassified documents on Battle of Stalingrad.
13. Orange County Register: James Poulos, U.S.-Russian cooperation working on ground in Syria.
14. Washington Post: David Filipov, Space, nuclear security, polar bears: Russia and the U.S. still agree on some things.
15. Sputnik: Outgoing US Envoy to Russia Confesses Sanctions on Russia ‘Blunt Instrument.’ (Tefft)
16. TASS: Moscow working on measures to respond to tightened US anti-Russian sanctions.
17. The National Interest: Katrina vanden Heuvel, Washington and Moscow Must Embrace Détente-Despite Trump. Sober realism about U.S. policy towards Russia has seldom been more imperative and less evident.
18. Coda: Steven Yoder, Russian Disinformation: Everywhere? Nowhere? Neither? In America, debate over the reach of Moscow propaganda heats up and scrambles political alliances.
19. Christian Science Monitor: Fred Weir, As Trump doubles down on Afghanistan, Russians shake their heads. The US president’s decision to extend the war, reversing his campaign pledges to withdraw from it, stand in sharp contrast to the lessons that Mikhail Gorbachev and the USSR took from the conflict almost 30 years ago.
20. Valdai Discussion Club: Alexander Vorontsov, SECOND KOREAN WAR: A NO-WIN SITUATION.
21. www.rt.com: Bryan MacDonald, Why do some Russian ambassadors die? Probably because they are old.
22. The National Interest: Nikolas Gvosdev, We Still Don’t Know How Trump’s Administration Will Handle Ukraine. In Kiev, Mattis could provide no definitive answers to questions about what is likely to change.
23. Forbes.com: Kenneth Rapoza, Ukraine’s President Says It Again: Country Will Absolutely Join NATO, Fight Russia.
24. Awful Avalanche: Death Throes Of The Ukrainian Economy.
25. New York Times: Michael Kofman, For the U.S., Arming Ukraine Could Be a Deadly Mistake.
26. Deutsche Welle: Could sending lethal weapons to Ukraine bring peace? Former Deputy Secretary General of NATO Alexander Vershbow told DW the alliance remains committed to Ukrainian sovereignty. But as talks with Russia remain at a stalemate, he says other options must be explored.
27. The Guardian (UK): Sheila Fitzpatrick, Red Famine by Anne Applebaum review – did Stalin deliberately let Ukraine starve? A vivid account exposes the myths of the catastrophic Ukrainian famine of 1932-3.
28. Reconsidering Russia Podcast: An Interview with Alexander Rabinowitch.
29. Cherwell (UK): The Russian Revolution was a kind of orgy. Altair Brandon-Salmon is thrilled by the British Library’s exhibition marking the centenary of the Russian Revolution.
30. Koerber Stiftung: Russia is not the USSR in disguise. Interview with Alexander Konkov.
31. New York Times: Odd Arne Westad, The Cold War and America’s Delusion of Victory.
32. The Guardian: Ian Thomson, The Cold War: A World History by Odd Arne Westad – review. A huge single-volume history of the power struggle between the US and USSR from 1945-89 is packed with detailed research and food for thought.
33. The Nation: Stephen Cohen, The Lost Alternatives of Mikhail Gorbachev. Thirty years ago, the last Soviet leader gave the world the possibilities of a democratic Russia and (with Ronald Reagan) an end to Cold War and nuclear arms races. Today, it is as though those historical alternatives never existed.
34. New book: Gorbachev: His Life and Times by William Taubman.
