RUSSIA & UKRAINE – Johnson’s Russia List table of contents :: JRL 2018-185 :: Tuesday, 23 October 2018

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Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2018-#185
Tuesday, 23 October 2018

A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. The contents do not necessarily represent the views of IERES or The George Washington University.
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1. The Nation: Nadezhda Azhgikhina, Russia’s Unlearned Lessons From the Failed Revolt of 1993.
2. Kremlin.ru: Meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club. (transcript concluded)
3. Interfax: Moscow govt formally allows Oct 29 remembrance of victims of repression on Lubyanka Square.
4. TASS: Kremlin backs bill curbing foreign ownership of news aggregators.
5. www.opendemocracy.net: Tanya Lokshina, In Russia’s North Caucasus, an unprecedented, peaceful protest. In Ingushetia, people have come out to protest land transfer to neighbouring Chechya. For now, the Kremlin is listening.
6. Intellinews.com: Ben Aris, Russian corporate profits soar thanks to high oil prices.
7. www.awaragroup.com: THE GOVERNMENT IS PREPARING A SERIES OF MEASURES TO IMPROVE BUSINESS CLIMATE.
[https://www.awaragroup.com/blog/transformation-of-business-climate-in-russia/]
8. RFE/RL: Let Them East Cheese: Russian Plant Thrives Amid Sanctions.
9. Sputnik: Why $100 per Barrel Oil Prices Aren’t Good for Anybody, Including Russia.
10. Indian Punchline: M. K. BHADRAKUMAR, Saudi Arabia gets a friend in need – Russia.
11. www.rt.com: Saudi Arabia to invest $5bn in Russia’s future LNG project in Arctic.
12. www.rt.com: ‘Even small steps help’: Russian defense minister says Syria was success for US & Russia ties.
13. European Leadership Network: Matthew Rojansky, Can a US-Russia conflict be contained?
[https://www.europeanleadershipnetwork.org/commentary/can-a-us-russia-conflict-be-contained/]
14. www.rt.com: US aircraft carrier enters Arctic Circle for the first time in nearly three decades.
15. Reuters: Let’s work on shortcomings in INF arms treaty, Russia tells U.S.
16. TASS: RBC: INF accord hanging by a thread.
17. TASS: Chinese diplomat on looming INF exit: US beware, Beijing won’t tolerate blackmail.
18. Financial Times: Trump’s nuclear treaty threat endangers arms control efforts. Plan to exit missile accord deepens decay of cold war proliferation deals.
19. Brookings: Steven Pifer, The Trump administration is preparing a major mistake on the INF Treaty.
20. www.strategic-culture.org: Andrei Akulov, Responding to US Unleashing Unfettered Arms Race: Russia’s Options.
[https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/10/22/responding-us-unleashing-unfettered-arms-race-russia-options.html]
21. Valdai Discussion Club: Fu Ying, Power Rivalry or Peaceful Coexistence?
22. Foreign Policy Research Institute: Robert Hamilton, August 2008 and Everything After: A Ten-Year Retrospective on the Russia-Georgia War.
[Full text https://www.fpri.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/final-bssp-1-hamilton.pdf]
23. Bloomberg: Leonid Bershidsky, The IMF Steps In to Boost Ukrainian President’s Re-Election Bid. Thanks to an agreement on a $4 billion loan, Poroshenko won’t be seen by voters as presiding over a failing economy.
24. www.buzzfeednews.com: Konstantin Benyumov and Emily Tamkin, Meet The Woman Who Is Proudly Russia’s Troll-In-Chief. Maria Zakharova has revolutionized what it means to be a Russian diplomat – in real life and online. “She’s like Marmite: Some people love her and some people hate her.”
25. Moscow Times: U.S. Launches Cyber Operation Against Russia Ahead of Election, NYT Reports.
26. Reuters: Bolton says Russian meddling in U.S. elections hardly had any real effect.
27. Wall Street Journal: How Russian Trolls Inflamed the NFL’s Anthem Controversy. Russia-linked Twitter accounts sent more than 12,000 tweets about the NFL or the anthem in their alleged efforts to sow discord.
28. Moscow Times: Putin Is Living in a World Without Rules
29. Daily Mail (UK): Russia has ‘more than five times as many spies in Britain now than it did during the Cold War’
30. Buzzfeednews.com: Here Are The Issues Russian Trolls Are Using To Divide Americans Ahead Of The Midterm Elections. Russian-run social media accounts are still attempting to sow discord in the US, according to federal prosecutors, and they’re spending millions a year on the effort.
31. Daily Beast: Putin’s Filmmaker Speaks, Reveals Unseen Footage of Russian Leader’s Rise to Power. Rare insight from Vitaly Mansky, a former Kremlin propagandist, paints an extraordinary portrait of a president drawn ever deeper into dictatorship.
32. Medium.com: The Trolls Within: How Russian Information Operations Infiltrated Online Communities in 2016.
33. The Independent (UK): Whether Russia meddles in the US midterms or not, the damage to democracy has already been done. The key Russian objective is not to aid the Republicans but to undermine American faith in democratic government and its institutions. So far, they’re doing quite a good job
34. The Guardian (UK): How Russia cyber attacks helped Trump to the US presidency. It’s clearer than ever: the theft and leaking of Democratic emails were key to Clinton’s election defeat.

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