JRL NEWSWATCH: “Protests in Russia Put Spotlight on Wartime Ethnic Grievances” – New York Times

Russia Regions Map

“The trial and conviction of an activist in the Ural Mountains region sparked one of the biggest outbreaks of social unrest since the start of the war.” “The trial of a minority rights activist in Russia … sparked one of [Russia’s]  biggest outbreaks of social unrest … since the start of the [Russo-Ukrainian] war … highlighting the strain … on […]

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Rebuttal: Ukraine Is Emerging as Critical Node for White-Supremacy Extremists

Map of Ukraine, Including Crimea, and Neighbors, Including Russia

(Russia Matters – russiamatters.org – Mollie Saltskog, Colin P. Clarke – Sept. 24, 2020) Mollie Saltskog is a senior intelligence analyst at The Soufan Group, a strategic consultancy based in New York City. Colin P. Clarke is a senior research fellow at The Soufan Center and an assistant teaching professor at the Institute for Politics and Strategy at Carnegie Mellon […]

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Levada Poll: 1/2 of Russians Support Idea of ‘Russia for Russians,’ About 1/5 Would Not Let in Chinese, Ukrainians

Map of Russia and Russian Flag adapted from images at state.gov

(Russia Matters – russiamatters.org – RM Staff – Sept. 23, 2020) Slightly more than half (51%) of Russians either support implementing the idea of “Russia for [ethnic] Russians” or think it would be good to implement “within reasonable limits,” according to a Levada Center poll of 1,600 people in 137 localities across 50 of Russia’s 80-plus regions conducted Aug. 20-26, […]

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Anti-Centralism Now Embraced by Both Russian and Non-Russian Radical Oppositions, Sidorov Says

Russia Regions Map

(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, August 3, 2020) Russian nationalists have always been more divided than most analysts have suggested, with some committed imperialists, others devoted to a small Russia, and still others believing that their best course forward is in the elaboration of a civic national identity that would allow them to retain the loyalty of […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Russia’s disinformation campaigns are targeting African Americans” – Washington Post/ Zilvinas Svedkauskas, Chonlawit Sirikupt, Michel Salzer

File Image of Laptop Computer, Tables and Mobile Device, adapted from image at energy.gov

“Russia is masking its involvement by outsourcing its disinformation operations to West Africa.” “… The Kremlin’s previous attempts to hijack movements such as Occupy Wall Street and the Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access pipeline indicate that the Kremlin can skillfully reframe social protests to increase mistrust between U.S. citizens and their government. If African Americans continue to be […]

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Do Black Lives Matter in Russia?

Map of Russia and Russian Flag adapted from images at state.gov

(PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo – Peter Rutland, Andrei Kazantsev – July 13, 2020) Peter Rutland is Professor of Global Issues and Democratic Thought at Wesleyan University. Andrei Kazantsev is Professor at the Higher School of Economics, Russia. This memorandum reviews Russian state media and civil society responses to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. The varying reactions cast an interesting […]

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RUSSIALINK: “White population should not bear responsibility for distant ancestors’ actions – Russian Orthodox Church” – Interfax

File Photo of Russian Orthodox Church at Kremlin, adapted from defense.gov Image

MOSCOW. July 13 (Interfax) – The Russian Orthodox Church condemns racism, but believes that modern people should not bear responsibility for what their ancestors once did. “Those white people who live on earth now cannot bear responsibility for what their ancestors did a long time ago. Nevertheless, when the state authorities of countries apologize for mistakes made in the past, […]

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Russia, George Floyd, and the end of the imaginary West; Why are Russians so angered by America’s latest protests?

File Photo of G7 Leaders and other Officials Around Round Table at the Hague, with Flags

From liberal columnists to pro-Kremlin pundits, Russia’s opinion formers take the same line on the protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd. Once poles apart, they have merged into a chorus chanting about the death of the West, exposing “political correctness,” and gleefully sharing racist jokes.

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RUSSIALINK: “Putin Criticizes U.S. Coronavirus Response, Condemns ‘Mayhem and Rioting’ at Anti-Racism Protests” – Moscow Times

Vladirmir Putin and Donald Trump Sitting in Chairs with Flags Behind, adapted from image at whitehouse.gov

In a major interview, Vladimir Putin discussed anti-racism protests in the U.S. and Europe (Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – June 14, 2020) Russian President Vladimir Putin said Sunday that the U.S. anti-racism protests were a sign of deep crises in the country, criticizing the protests for sparking violence, and raising questions over Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. The […]

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‘The Message Sends Itself’: In Coverage Of U.S. Protests, Russia Reveals Its Own Fears Of Unrest, Disorder

File Photo of Moscow Protest with Riot Police

… Putin’s government has clamped down on protests at home, sometimes deploying violent methods that have earned it opprobrium from Washington and the West and demands that it respect human rights. … Accusations of U.S. hypocrisy are nothing new for the Kremlin and the media outlets it controls […]

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RUSSIALINK: “Russia Is a ‘Distinct Civilization,’ Putin Says” – Moscow Times

File Photo of Vladimir Putin at Podium with United Russia Logo, Gesturing

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – May 18, 2020) Russia is a distinct civilization that must be protected through genetics and other advanced technologies, President Vladimir Putin said in an interview that aired Sunday. Putin told state television that “it would be impossible to secure the future of our civilization” without artificial intelligence, genetics and unmanned vehicles, as well as hypersonic […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Russia Trying to Stoke U.S. Racial Tensions Before Election, Officials Say” – New York Times/ Julian E. Barnes, Adam Goldman

File Photo of White House with South Lawn and Fountain

Russian intelligence services are trying to incite violence by white supremacist groups to sow chaos in the United States, American intelligence officials said “The Russian government has stepped up efforts to inflame racial tensions in the United States as part of its bid to influence November’s presidential election, including trying to incite violence by white supremacist groups and to stoke […]

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RUSSIALINK: “Was the Mayor of Latvia’s Capital Ousted Because He Was Corrupt, or Russian? The case has exposed rifts between the Baltic nation’s Latvian and Russian-speaking communities.”

Map of Baltics and Environs, Including Kaliningrad

“… at the beginning of April, the Latvian government announced its decision to sack Usakovs, citing violations of the law and city mismanagement that has led to the loss of around 28 million euros in municipal finances. …”

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10,000 Windows on Eurasia

Eurasia Map

(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, April 29, 2019 – windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/04/10000-windows-on-eurasia.html) This is the 10,000th Window on Eurasia in the new series I launched seven years ago after our house burned and I was diagnosed with leukemia. I did not expect to reach this milestone; in fact, I did not even expect to reach the number of roughly […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “‘These Are Our Friends’; Russians Push to Preserve North Korea Ties; Some Russian business owners and ethnic Koreans are braving U.S. ire to maintain business ties with Pyongyang” – Wall Street Journal/ Anatoly Kurmanaev, Thomas Grove, Ksenia Barakovskaya, Lyubov Barabashova, Ian Talley

North Korea Map and Flag, adapted from .gov image

“… some 13,000 North Korean workers [were] left in Russia by October …. Some Western diplomats view Moscow’s implementation of … sanctions as overly liberal. … allowing [Pyongyang] to continue earning foreign currency and sourcing vital supplies in Russia and undermining U.S. attempts to strong-arm the country into giving up [WMD]. … Russian customs data show North Korea imported about […]

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RUSSIALINK: “Putin signs law partially decriminalizing Article 282 of Russian Criminal Code on extremism” – Interfax

Vladimir Putin file photo with VOA logo; screen shot from video still

MOSCOW. Dec 28 (Interfax) – President Vladimir Putin has signed the law adjusting Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code. The law passed in the State Duma on December 19 and approved by the Federation Council on December 21 was published on the official Internet portal of legal information on Thursday. The law initiated by the Russian president decriminalizes first-time […]

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RUSSIALINK TRANSCRIPT: “[Putin at] Meeting of the Council for Interethnic Relations” – KremlinRu

Russia Regions Map

(Kremlin.ru – October 26, 2018) Vladimir Putin chaired a meeting of the Council for Interethnic Relations held at the administration centre of Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area – Yugra. The meeting participants discussed current issues related to Russia’s state ethnic policy, the influence of geographic and demographic development on interethnic relations, and additional measures to protect the native languages of the peoples […]

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RUSSIALINK: “Anti-Ukrainian, anti-immigrant feeling in Russia up in past 5 years – Levada Center head” – Interfax

Map of Commonwealth of Independent States, European Portion

MOSCOW. Oct 29 (Interfax) – The level of xenophobic tendencies in Russia is higher than it was at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union but has declined since 2013 and about 8-15% of Russia’s adult population is xenophobic, Lev Gudkov, the head of the Levada Center, said. “The level of diffuse, massive xenophobia has increased considerably over […]

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RUSSIALINK: “Putin Establishes Foundation to Preserve Russia’s Native Languages” – Moscow Times

Russia Regions Map

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – October 26, 2018) President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree that establishes a foundation to help preserve Russia’s native languages, the Kremlin announced on Friday. The measure comes in the wake of worries in Russia’s republics that their native languages are under threat. In June, the State Duma signed a bill into law that restricts […]

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RUSSIALINK: “Putin calls himself nationalist fighting for preservation of multi-national Russia” – Interfax

Russia Regions Map

SOCHI. Oct 18 (Interfax) – Russian President Vladimir Putin sees himself as a nationalist who advocates the preservation of a multi-ethnic Russia, not as the “caveman” kind. “If we are going to peddle such caveman nationalism, pour dirt on representatives of other ethnicities, we will break up the country, and the Russian people are not interested in this. What I […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Entrepreneurs of political violence: the varied interests and strategies of the far-right in Ukraine; For Ukraine’s far right, violence has become a source of influence and power [Excerpt]” – OpenDemocracy/ Denys Gorach

Map of Ukraine, Including Crimea, and Neighbors, Including Russia

(opendemocracy.net – Denys Gorach – October 16, 2018) Denys Gorbach is a leftist activist and researcher working on the Ukrainian labour movement. [Full text: opendemocracy.net/od-russia/denys-gorbach/entrepreneurs-of-political-violence-ukraine-far-right] “The recent wave of anti-Roma pogroms in Ukraine has spawned a new series of texts on right-wing violence. However, a significant part of this literature still mostly relies on discourse analysis, which cannot fully explain […]

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Slogan ‘Russia for the Russians’ Correctly Understood Shouldn’t Frighten Anyone, Vinogradov Says

File Photo of Kremlin Aerial View, adapted from .gov source

(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, August 28, 2018 – windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2018/08/slogan-russia-for-russians-correctly.html) Many have been upset that the share of Russians who support the slogan “Russia for the Russians” has almost doubled over the last year, Mikhail Vinogradov, the president of the Petersburg Politics Foundation, says. But there isn’t any harm in this, unlike slogans suggesting that “Russia is […]

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Russia’s World Cup Team Bucks Multiethnicity Seen On Swiss, Other Teams

File Image of Soccer Ball, Field, Stadium with Lights, adapted from image at fbi.gov

(Article ©2018 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – Pete Baumgartner – June 30, 2018 – article also appeared at rferl.org/a/russia-world-cup-team-no-multiethnicity-swiss/29329228.html) While there is a splash of ethnic diversity on virtually every team playing in soccer’s 2018 Russia World Cup, many cite the Swiss national team for setting the standard for being multicultural. Known affectionally by its fans […]

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‘Ruins of Empire in Sands of Central Asia’ – Russians Leaving Turkmenistan and ISIS Coming In

Map of CIS Central Asia and Environs

(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, April 23, 2018) Russians constitute only two or three percent of the population of the Central Asian country of Turkmenistan, their departure having been accelerated by the economic crisis there and the Islamist threat from Afghanistan and Ashgabat’s closure of Russian-language schools and insistence that officials speak Turkmen. In an article on […]

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Interfax: Moscow accuses Kyiv of forced Ukrainization policy

Map of Ukraine, Including Crimea, and Neighbors, Including Russia

MOSCOW. Oct 18 (Interfax) – The Russian Foreign Ministry has called on international human rights institutions to influence Kyiv over Ukraine’s discriminatory laws regarding the use of the state language in education and the media. “We call on relevant international human rights institutions, including, primarily, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human […]

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Russians’ Tolerance for Foreigners at All-Time High

Russian Migrant Workers file photo

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – August 24, 2017) Negativity towards foreigners in Russia has reached an all-time low, according to the results of a new poll produced Levada Center. Russians who said they’d like to restrict one or more nationalities from the country fell to its lowest level ever at 54 percent, down from 70 percent in 2016, and an […]

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TRANSCRIPT: [Putin at] Council for Interethnic Relations meeting

Russia Regions Map

(Kremlin.ru – July 20, 2017) Vladimir Putin held a meeting of the Council for Interethnic Relations in Yoshkar-Ola. Implementation at regional and municipal level of the State Ethnic Policy Strategy until 2025 was the main item on the agenda. The Presidential Council for Interethnic Relations was established in 2012 to enhance state policy in this area. The Council is made […]

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Russia Caught Between Economic Decline and Potentially Explosive Demographic Change

Russian Migrant Workers file photo

(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, July 5, 2017) Russia’s economic development ministry says that the country’s GDP growth will be approximately half of one percent lower each year because of projected declines in the number of workers in Russia in the coming decades, a decline that the ministry says must be fought by increasing immigration. But any […]

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Russian Civic Nation ‘Already Exists,’ Doesn’t Need to be Declared or Defined, Kremlin Official Says

Kremlin and River

(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – March 18, 2017) Staunton, March 18 – Two weeks ago, efforts by the working group Vladimir Putin set up to define the meaning of a civic Russian nation (rossiiskaya natsiya) collapsed when the leaders of that group announced that they were refocusing a draft law on nationality policy more generally (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2017/03/putin-tishkov-push-to-define-civic.html). But yesterday, […]

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Russia Wants Immigrants the World Doesn’t;  While Europe and the U.S. tighten border controls, former Soviet states are encouraged by Moscow to send their workers.

Russian Migrant Workers file photo

(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Leonid Ragozin – March 14, 2017) [Text with photos here bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-03-14/russia-s-alternative-universe-immigrants-welcome] On a brutally cold February day, hundreds of laborers from Uzbekistan mill around in the snow and mud of a construction site 10 miles outside Moscow. Surrounding them are a series of unfinished 18-story apartment blocks meant to serve as homes for Russian military officers. […]

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Peoples of Russia have Nothing in Common Except Loyalty to Putin, Kashin Says

Russia Regions Map

(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, March 9, 2017) Historians have often observed that one of the fundamental weaknesses of tsarist Russia was that the country was held together only by personalist ties of loyalty to the tsar and so that when the tsar was removed from the equation, Russia had little or no reason to continue to […]

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For Russia’s Labor Migrants, a Life on the Edge; In slum settlements on the outskirts of Moscow, foreign workers are adjusting to the realities of Russia’s economic crisis.

Russian Migrant Workers file photo

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Matthew Kupfer, Bradley Jardine – November 4, 2016) Not so long ago, the migrant population of Chelobityevo in northern Moscow lived in fear of the police. These were times when uniformed officers would descend on the village unannounced, beating and arresting undocumented workers in their path. Once, migrants were forced to strip naked in freezing […]

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TRANSCRIPT: [Putin at] Meeting of the Council for Interethnic Relations

Russia Regions Map

(Kremlin.ru – October 31, 2016) Vladimir Putin chaired a meeting of the Council for Interethnic Relations in Astrakhan. The meeting addressed current issues related to implementing Russia’s National Ethnic Policy Strategy. President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, colleagues, We are here today to discuss current issues concerning implementation of the National Ethnic Policy Strategy. As you know, we approved […]

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Russians Increasingly Indifferent to Idea of ‘Russia for the Russians,’ Polls Show

Russia Map

(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, October 18, 2016) The share of Russians who back the idea of “Russia for the [ethnic] Russians” has remained almost unchanged at around 50 percent over the last 14 years, but the share of those who are indifferent to this idea has gone up by almost half from 14 to a high […]

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Putin’s Iron Grip, Forged in the Fires of Terrorism

Kremlin and River

(Stratfor.com – Lauren Goodrich – September 4, 2016) Sept. 4 marks Russia’s Day of Solidarity, a remembrance of two brutal terrorist incidents: the start of an apartment bombing campaign in 1999 and the bloody end of a siege at a Beslan school in 2004. Much as the 9/11 attacks changed the national psyche of the United States, those events altered […]

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The Real Threat to the Baltics Isn’t Russia — It’s Depopulation

Map of Baltics and Environs, Including Kaliningrad

Depopulation—Invisible Threat to Latvia’s Security (Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 13, Issue 132 – Olevs Nikers – July 21, 2016) [Also appeared at Russia Insider, with modified title and introductory capsule: “Between ethnic Russians leaving for #Russia and Balts leaving for the UK the three baltic states are emptying out — Latvia and Lithuania lost 8.3 […]

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The rise of Azov; War in the east, political and economic crisis in Kyiv – these are ideal conditions for Ukraine’s far right to capitalise on their frontline successes.

Map of Ukraine, Including Crimea, and Neighbors, Including Russia

(opendemocracy.net – Denys Gorbach, Oles Petik – February 15, 2016) Denys Gorbach is a leftist activist and researcher working on the Ukrainian labour movement. Oles Petik is an anarchist volunteering as an editor and translator at a Kyiv-based grassroots publishing cooperative. Strange it may seem, but Ukraine’s far right and Russia’s propaganda machine share a common fantasy: a radical right-wing […]

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Nine lingering myths about Russia

Map of Russia and Russian Flag adapted from images at state.gov

We are often held prisoner by imposed stereotypes and opinions about countries, people and events. RBTH has collected nine myths about Russia that are far from accurate. (Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – NATALYA PUKHOVA, SPECIAL TO RBTH – January 26, 2016) 1. The death rate in Russia is higher than its birth rate There is a widespread belief […]

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Integration still a challenge in Russia

Russian Migrant Workers file photo

Russian society has yet to accept that mass migration is a fact, which makes it harder for those moving to the country to integrate into society, according to an expert on xenophobia. (Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Ilya Krol – November 2, 2015) The SOVA Center for Information and Analysis is one of the leading nonprofit organizations in […]

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Knocking back Russia’s nationalists

Map of Commonwealth of Independent States, European Portion

The conflict in Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea has brought the Kremlin and Russia’s ultra-nationalists closer together. Recent prosecutions show that their ideas still have the government worried. (opendemocracy.net – Vyacheslav Koslov – September 15, 2015) Vyacheslav Kozlov is a journalist for daily newspaper Kommersant. He writes on international relations, nationalism, extremism, narco-politics, the Russian opposition and the problems […]

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Russians More Optimistic about Ethnic Problems at Home But Have Little Reason to Be, Experts Say

Russia Regions Map

(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, August 26, 2015) The shares of Russians who say that ethnic conflicts in their country are “likely” or “more likely than not” have declined from 17 and 45 percent respectively in October 2013 to five and 20 percent now, according to the findings of a new Levada Center poll. But Mikhail Remizov […]

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Russian poll on nationalism and xenophobia produces worrying results

Russian Migrant Workers file photo

(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Henry Kirby in London – August 25, 2015) More Russians than ever (41%) believe that illegal immigrants from neighbouring countries should be granted legal status in Russia and given the chance to assimilate, although 43% still want them to be expelled from the country. According to a survey published by independent polling company Levada […]

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Bershidsky: Ukraine’s Neo-Nazis Won’t Get U.S. Money

U.S. Capitol in Bright Sunlight

(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Leonid Bershidsky – June 12, 2015) It’s easy to see why Representative John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, would have a problem with the military unit commanded by Ukrainian legislator Andriy Biletsky: Conyers is a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus, Biletsky is a white supremacist. The House of Representatives has unanimously approved an amendment to […]

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NEWSLINK International New York Times/Michael Khodarkovsky: Putin’s Disunited Nation

Vladimir Putin file photo with VOA logo; screen shot from video still

During those tense days in early March when Vladimir Putin disappeared from public view, the Russian president issued only one official statement: He instructed his prime minister to prepare a blueprint for a new federal agency that would work toward ‘consolidating the unity of the multiethnic nation of the Russian Federation.’The move passed relatively unnoticed, but it raises provocative questions. […]

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Experts: Putin’s New Ethnic Affairs Agency Aims to Thwart Political Threats

Map of Russia and Russian Flag adapted from images at state.gov

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – April 2, 2015) President Vladimir Putin’s recent decision to launch a government agency charged with maintaining interethnic and interfaith harmony in Russia is a bid to prevent foreign powers and internal opposition factions from seeking to exploit a weak spot in Russia’s power structure, analysts told The Moscow Times. Since the collapse of the […]

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Russians’ Hatreds Easy to Unleash But Difficult to Limit, Reverse or Overcome

Map of Commonwealth of Independent States, European Portion

(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, March 30, 2015) Many are taking comfort in the notion that just as Russians appear to have reduced their hatred of immigrants when encouraged by the Kremlin to hate Ukrainians instead so too their hatred against the latter could be ended relatively easily if Moscow changed course — and in any case […]

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NEWSWATCH: In 2015, Vladimir Putin may witness his empire’s death knell

Vladimir Putin

[“In 2015, Vladimir Putin may witness his empire’s death knell” – Strobe Talbott – Reuters – Dec. 16, 2014] Strobe Talbott predicts that a third Chechen War could break out in 2015, sounding the death knell for Russia’s current geographic configuration. Indeed, Talbott comments that Russia could break apart by the end this century, and that the policies of Russian President […]

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RIA Novosti: Russia’s Ethnic Tensions Drop Due to Crimea Reunification, President’s Approval: Kremlin

Kremlin and Saint Basil's

MOSCOW, October 8 (RIA Novosti) – Interethnic tensions have reduced significantly this year in Russia as a result of the country’s reunification with Crimea and President Vladimir Putin’s high approval ratings, the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office, Magomedsalam Magomedov said Wednesday. “The main factors for the significant reduction in interethnic tension was rallying people around such […]

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