RUSSIA & UKRAINE – Johnson’s Russia List table of contents :: JRL 2018-119 :: Friday, 29 June 2018

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Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2018-#119:: Friday, 29 June 2018
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1. Moscow Times: Michele Berdy, Russia’s Summer Folk Head Out to the Dacha.
2. Meduza: Russia’s 2018 FIFA World Cup may be the best one yet, and here’s the proof.
3. AP: Happy Hosts Russia Wait for Spain Team Under Fire at Home.
4. Financial Times: Russia revels in World Cup feelgood factor. Atmosphere changed by outpouring of support and encounters with foreign fans.
5. Valdai Discussion Club: Timothy Colton, BOLTON’S VISIT TO MOSCOW: DIPLOMACY CAN WORK IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS
6. The Independent (UK): Mary Dejevsky, Donald Trump should be applauded for meeting with Vladimir Putin – here’s why. Whether you like it or not, Trump won the presidency – and he won on a platform that included trying to thaw relations with Russia.
7. TASS: Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Landmark Putin-Trump summit unlikely to halt arms race.
8. Valdai Discussion Club: Sergey Veselovsky, WASHINGTON-MOSCOW: REPAIRING THE RELATIONS INCREMENTALLY.
9. The National Interest: Curt Mills, Bolton Defends Putin Meeting, Planned Trump Summit. The national security advisor, a hardliner, has always been a vehement foe of talks with America’s strategic adversaries.
10. Interfax: Trump-Putin meeting will benefit both countries, strengthen global security – John Bolton.
11. Russia Insider: Rostislav Ishchenko, View From Russia: The Putin-Trump Summit Will Be Held on Kremlin’s Terms, Not Washington’s. Originally Trump invited Putin to Washington, instead the meeting will be held in a neutral country — and without any preconditions for Russia to fulfill as the US at one point demanded. [https://russia-insider.com/en/politics/view-russia-putin-trump-summit-will-be-held-kremlins-terms-not-washingtons/ri23965]
12. www.paulcraigroberts.org: Paul Craig Roberts, Two Views of the Putin/Trump Summit.
13. Intellinews.com: Tim Ash, Bolton meets Putin in Moscow “All hail to Caesar”
14. www.rt.com: Neil Clark, World Cup 2018: Epic fail for Russophobes but a great victory for football. https://www.rt.com/op-ed/431182-world-cup-russia-media-bias/
15. Washington Post editorial: Trump is kowtowing to the Kremlin again. Why? Ahead of a summit with Putin, Trump is siding with the Russian leader, with dangerous results.
16. New York Time editorial: Trump and Putin’s Too-Friendly Summit. It’s good to meet with adversaries. But when Mr. Trump sits down with Mr. Putin, it will be a meeting of kindred spirits. That’s a problem. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/28/us/politics/trump-putin-meeting.html
17. New York Times: In Meeting With Putin, Experts Fear Trump Will Give More Than He Gets.
18. www.rt.com: Danielle Ryan, New York Times exposes its own hypocrisy with cartoon of Trump & Putin as gay lovers. [https://www.rt.com/op-ed/431177-gay-putin-trump-nyt-media/]
19. Carnegie Moscow Center: Gleb Pavlovsky, Putin and Yumashev: Survivors of the Nineties. Vladimir Putin learned the art of political survival in the Kremlin of the 1990s. Little wonder that he has decided to keep on his former co-conspirator from that era, Valentin Yumashev.
20. Paul Goble: Mixed Government-Business Clans Still Dominate Regional Regimes, Isayev Says.
21. The Economist: Back to work. Russia will raise pension ages that date back to Stalin. People are not happy, but protests are likely to be muted.
22. Bear Market Brief: Aaron Schwartzbaum, On Pension Reform.
23. Intellinews.com: Marcus How and Adam Urosevic, How Central Europeans learned to stop worrying and love Russian gas. [Text with links http://www.intellinews.com/vienneast-insight-how-central-europeans-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-russian-gas-144256/?source=russia]
24. www.rt.com: European Union extends economic sanctions against Russia.
25. The Unz Review: The Saker, No Fifth Column in the Kremlin? Think Again! http://www.unz.com/tsaker/no-fifth-column-in-the-kremlin-think-again/
26. www.rt.com: UK & allies used ‘bribery & blackmail’ to force other states to back OPCW proposal – Moscow.
27. The Independent (UK): Robert Fisk, This moment will go down in history: the US has given up on the overthrow of Assad in Syria. When Washington ‘understands the difficult conditions’ its militia allies are facing and says it ‘advises’ the Russians and Syrians not to violate a ceasefire – which was Moscow’s idea in the first place – you know that the Americans are pulling the carpet from beneath another set of allies. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syria-assad-regime-us-support-syria-rebels-israel-golan-heights-a8417716.html
29. Wall Street Journal: Trump Expected to Seek Putin’s Help to Curb Iran’s Military in Syria. U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin plan to meet in Helsinki on July 16.