[“Russia puts losses from sanctions, cheaper oil at up to $140 billion/year” – Reuters – Nov. 24, 2014] Reuters reports on Russia’s claims about the extent to which Western sanctions and lower oil prices are impacting the Russian economy. The assertions were made by Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov at a Monday press conference. Lower oil prices and Western financial sanctions […]
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[“Russia, China plan war games, arms sales. Could alliance be in the cards? With Russia alienated by the West and China eager to buy high-end weaponry, a joint military pact – though still a long way off – looks increasingly seductive to both” – Christian Science Monitor – Fred Weir – Nov. 21, 2014] The Christian Science Monitor reports on […]
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[“Newsless Joe Biden’s disappointing visit to Kyiv” – Kyiv Post – Brian Bonner – Nov. 23, 2014] The Kyiv Post covers U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s recent trip to Ukraine and bemoans the fact that more was not accomplished, at least publicly. At the same time, a meeting involving Biden, Victoria Nuland, Geoffrey Pyatt, new members of Parliament, and activists addressed […]
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[“On revolution anniversary, anger over unpunished deaths” – Kiev Post – Olena Goncharova – Nov.21, 2014] A year after Maidan protests, the Kiev Post covers ongoing reactions in Ukraine over killings that occurred during the protests and the pace of investigation and prosecution. The killings of more than 100 Ukrainians by the ousted president remain unpunished a year later, enraging […]
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[“It is time for the west and Ukraine to offer Putin a deal. Ukraine will never succeed with a hostile Russia on its borders.” – Financial Times – John Thornhill – Nov. 23, 2014] A Financial Times commentary by John Thornton urges Western and Ukrainian engagement of Russia to help facilitate a way forward for Ukrainian peace and prosperity. … Realism suggests it […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – November 24, 2014) The new U.S. Ambassador to Russia, John Tefft, has said the current crisis between Moscow and Washington can be resolved and that Western sanctions may be rolled back if Russia implements the terms of a peace plan for Ukraine that it co-signed. Tefft, who served as the top U.S. […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, November 23, 2014) De-Stalinization will have occurred not when everyone denounces Stalin in a chorus at the direction of the state but rather when each person can assess him in his or her own way and have debates about him, Vladimir Lukin says. Unfortunately, Russia has not succeeded in taking that step […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Natalia Antonova – November 21, 2014) Natalia Antonova was born in Kyiv and grew up in North Carolina. She works as a journalist and playwright. ‘Russophobia’ has become a charge as common as fascism in the information war between Russia, Ukraine and the West. The accusation brings to mind the tale of the boy who cried wolf. The […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Daryna Krasnolutska – November 20, 2014) Valentyna is thankful for the two pensions she and her husband share, even if Ukraine’s inflation shock means they’re no longer enough to buy medicine and meat. “We have some potatoes, tomatoes and cucumbers from our dacha,” said the 72-year-old pensioner as she made her way through the city of […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – November 24, 2014) President Vladimir Putin addressed everything from the possibility of re-election and his thoughts on U.S. President Barack Obama, to God and his preference for tea, in a massive interview published by state news agency TASS on Sunday. Putin on His Political Future Putin said in the interview that he does not intend […]
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[check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List JRL 2014-#242 :: Friday 21 November 2014 E-Mail: davidjohnson@starpower.net A project of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs: www.ieres.org JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist me JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php Ukraine 1. CNN.com: Starving, seething and scared: Eastern Ukraine’s residents struggle to […]
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[check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List JRL 2014-#241 :: Thursday 20 November 2014 E-Mail: davidjohnson@starpower.net A project of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs: www.ieres.org JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist me JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php Ukraine 1. New York Times editorial: Ukraine’s Slow Collapse. 2. The Economist: […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Iryna Stelmakh, Tom Balmforth – November 20, 2014) Kyiv’s Euromaidan protests began a year ago on November 21 and continued for months, through the cold winter of 2013-14. During the long, tense days of waiting and of celebrating genuine people power on Kyiv’s Independence Square, the world had the chance to meet many of the faces […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Oleg Yegorov, special to RBTH – November 21, 2014) Russia’s supreme court is preparing to examine the lawsuit filed by the Ministry of Justice requesting to liquidate Memorial, Russia’s first organization dedicated to preserving the memory of Stalin’s repressions and victims. RBTH reports on who else is telling the truth about the past […]
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(Interfax – November 21, 2014) Russia may see a growth and develop every sphere of public life even under the sanctions, said Committee of Civil Initiatives Chairman Alexei Kudrin. “There is always a wish to have a simple recipe: five steps that can make a great change. I have to admit there is no such recipe. Systemic transformations will require […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, November 20, 2014) Calls to overthrow the existing system [of government in Russia] are a manifestation of extremism and anti-popular thinking, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. “In standing up for freedom of elections, assembly, marches, rallies, you should not forget responsibility for your words and actions. You must know and understand that stirring up conflict between […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Kit Rees – November 21, 2014) He’s the head of one of the seemingly most conservative art institutes – St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum – but Mikhail Piotrovsky has been in the middle of a dispute about contemporary art this year as the museum hosted the 10th biennial Manifesta art festival. The festival, which finished earlier […]
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(US Embassy Ukraine – November 19, 2014) I think with government servants like Hanna Hopko and Dmytro (Shymkiv), you get a sense of Ukraine’s direction. I think the greatest single risk factor is business as usual. It’s the assumption in some circles that Ukraine can keep doing as it had been doing in the past. I think that attitude is […]
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(RFE/RL – November 21, 2014) Ukraine’s newly agreed five-party ruling coalition has reportedly set the country’s membership of NATO as its major goal. The coalition comprises the Petro Poroshenko Bloc, the Popular Front, Samopomich (Self-Rule), the Radical Party, and Batkivshchyna (Fatherland). The five pro-Western parties that passed the 5 percent threshold in last month’s parliamentary elections control a total of […]
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Subject: The tale of two crises (re The Economist) Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 From: Ben Aris <baris@bne.eu> I would like to comment on two sets of pieces you ran from the Economist on eastern European woes on JRL#241. I know I keep taking pops at the Economist and I try not to as I don’t have anything against it […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – November 21, 2014) President Vladimir Putin called on law enforcement agencies, religious leaders, institutions of civil society and Russia’s education system to join together to prevent the rise of extremism. Describing the threat of extremism, Putin pointed to color revolutions. “In the modern world extremism is often used as a geopolitical instrument to rearrange spheres […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – November 21, 2014) Russian national Igor Strelkov, a former commander of pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine, has claimed “personal responsibility” for unleashing the conflict across the border, in which 4,300 people have been killed since April. “I was the one who pulled the firing trigger of this war,” Strelkov said in an […]
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(Interfax – November 21, 2014) Most Russians approve of the Crimean affiliation to Russia and the negative attitude of Ukraine and the West does not bother them, the Levada Center told Interfax. Eighty-four percent of 1,600 respondents polled in 134 populated localities on November 14-17 supported the Crimean accession to Russia, 11 percent opposed the act and 6 percent were undecided. […]
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KYIV. Nov 21 (Interfax) – The United States Vice President Joe Biden has said that the U.S. is prepared to put more pressure on Russia if it does not honor its obligation to settle the situation in southeastern Ukraine and continues escalation. Russia will pay an even bigger price and will be isolated, if these things continue further, Biden told […]
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DONETSK. Nov 21 (Interfax) – Six residential buildings were damaged as a result of artillery strikes carried out by the Ukrainian army against the city on November 20, a spokesman for the Emergency Situations Ministry of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) told Interfax on Friday. “Five houses in the Kuibyshevsky district and one in the Kyivsky district were damaged […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Ben Aris in Moscow – November 21, 2014) On November 20 – almost one year to the day since the start of the Maidan protests that brought down President Viktor Yanukovych – a broad coalition deal was finally signed in Ukraine between the leading pro-European parties. Ukraine’s People’s Front, the Radical Party, Samopomoshch (Self […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – November 21, 2014) [Video interview here http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/mikhail-gorbachev-nobody-will-shut-my-mouth-video/511564.html] Many people who send letters to the first and last president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, still write on the envelope: “To the Secretary General of the Communist Party, Kremlin.” The Russian postal service is used to this and redirects the mail to the […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 19 (Interfax) – Head of the State Duma International Affairs Committee is disappointed that the U.S. Senate decided against considering legislation restricting the powers of the National Security Agency (NSA). “The U.S. Senate turned down the bill limiting the spying activeness of NSA. In this way liberties are sacrificed to total control. The decline of democracy,” he twitted […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, November 19, 2014) The Russian Justice Ministry has withdrawn claims against two foreign agent non-commercial organizations over their reports on foreign financing; only the non-commercial organization Soldiers’ Mothers of St Petersburg will be held responsible for not presenting its report, the ministry’s press service has reported. “The Russian Ministry of Justice had notified the Freedom of Information […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 20 (Interfax) – Russia has the world highest mortality rate amongst drug addicts, Federal Drug Control Service (FSKN) chief Viktor Ivanov said. “The use of narcotic drugs causes an unprecedentedly high mortality rate in the age group from 15 through 34, at least 50,000-60,000 people die each year from internal organ pathologies,” Ivanov said at a government meeting […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 11, Issue 206 – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – Roger McDermott – November 18, 2014) President Vladimir Putin’s order to revise Russia’s 2010 Military Doctrine by the end of this year prompted speculation in the Russian media and raised varying opinions about the revision process’s possible motives and its timing. It appears, according to defense specialists […]
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(Interfax – November 18, 2014) Mikhail Lesin, chairman of the board of directors of Gazprom-Media, which owns the Russian editorially independent radio station Ekho Moskvy, met the station’s members of staff on 18 November, privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax reported on the same day. They met to discuss the ongoing dispute between Lesin and Aleksey Venediktov, the station’s editor in […]
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(Interfax – November 19, 2014) Gazprom Media Board Chairman Mikhail Lesin is ready to consider a proposal from the Echo of Moscow radio minority shareholders on selling them a controlling stake belonging to Gazprom Media, Echo of Moscow Editor-in-Chief Alexei Venediktov said. “Mikhail Lesin said at a meeting with the editorial board [on Tuesday] that, if the minority shareholders make […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber- November 19, 2014) Two Russian rights advocates have been included on Foreign Policy magazine’s list of the top 100 leading global thinkers for their roles in raising contentious issues surrounding this year’s Sochi Olympic Games. LGBT rights defender Yelena Klimova and environmental activist Yevgeny Vitishko were included in the “advocates” section of the […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Olga Tanas – November 18, 2014) Russia’s economy will sink into a recession next year if the price of oil slumps to $60 a barrel and the U.S. and its allies tighten sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said. The economy of the world’s largest energy exporter won’t grow faster than 1 […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – bne/IntelliNews – November 20, 2014) Russia’s energy ministry has revised the outlook for global oil prices downwards from previous $95 per barrel to $80-$90 per barrel, deputy minister Kirill Molodtsov told the press, without specifying the time frame of the outlook. Currently the ministry is witnessing surplus demand in the oil market, with additional […]
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(US Embassy Moscow – November 19, 2014) It was a privilege to present my credentials today to President Putin as the new U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation. I joined 14 other ambassadors in the Kremlin’s beautiful Alexander Hall. As a U.S. diplomat for more than four decades, I am committed to maintaining open and frank lines of communication between […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, November 19, 2014) There are “no influential forces in the Kremlin now” calling for peace in Ukraine or with Russia’s other neighbors, independent Belarusian journalist Pavel Sheremet says. There are only various groups calling for war and differing only on when, where and how to carry out a full-scale war with Ukraine. […]
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(mccain.senate.gov – Washington, D.C., November 18, 2014) U.S. Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) today released the following statement urging the Obama Administration and the European Union to provide the support Ukrainian leaders have long sought in the face of renewed Russian aggression: “President Putin’s renewed aggression in Ukraine demands more than additional empty rhetoric and threats of […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, November 14, 2014) Renewed calls by some Ukrainians to shift the alphabet of their national language from one based on Cyrillic characters to a Latin-based script in order to escape from the influence of Moscow and be closer to the West has infuriated Russian nationalists, who say that there is no chance […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – November 20, 2014) New Year celebrations in Ukraine’s capital Kiev this year will be spearheaded by Saint Mykolay – the country’s Orthodox analogue of Santa Claus – instead of his secular Soviet-era counterpart Father Frost, according to an outline of the festivities published by the city administration. The holiday saint will be coming to the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber – November 20, 2014) President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman on Tuesday voiced what Russia wants from the West over Ukraine: guarantees that the former Soviet republic will not join NATO, an outcome that political analysts agree was already unlikely in the year-long conflict that has already claimed 4,000 lives. “We would like to hear […]
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(RIA Novosti – Moscow, November 19, 2014) Ukraine’s non-aligned status is important for ensuring Euro-Atlantic security and is in the interests of the Ukrainians themselves, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said at a [joint] news conference with his Hungarian counterpart Peter Szijjarto. “There is no doubt that the non-aligned status (of Ukraine – RIA Novosti) is fundamentally important not just […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 20 (Interfax) – Approximately 2.6 million Ukrainian nationals are staying in Russia at the moment, which is one million more than a year ago, Federal Migration Service (FMS) chief Konstantin Romodanovsky said at the Thursday meeting of the Council of Legislators dedicated to migration policy issues. “About 2.6 million Ukrainian citizens are currently staying in Russia, which is […]
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[check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List JRL 2014-#240 :: Wednesday 19 November 2014 E-Mail: davidjohnson@starpower.net A project of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs: www.ieres.org JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist me JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php Ukraine 1. Interfax-Ukraine: Ukraine says Russian-trained “terrorists” targeted Dutch delegation in […]
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PBS News Hour interviews Russia scholar Kimberly Marten about Russia’s unfolding relations with the West. [click here for transcript] Said Marten: I think part of what’s going on is that Putin is trying to take attention off of the problems that the Russian economy is facing. The sanctions are working much better than … predicted … they’re having real impact on the Russian oil industry … one […]
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(Interfax – November 19, 2014) Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had suggested to him that he should pay no attention to U.S. President Barack Obama’s remarks in which he called Russia a principal threat to the world. “The first time I took note of the listing of threats that President Obama took the […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Leslie Patton, Ilya Khrennikov – November 19, 2014) McDonald’s Corp.’s (MCD) largest restaurant in Russia reopened after local officials shuttered the location for three months, an optimistic sign for a company trying to return to business as usual in the country. The outlet, situated in Moscow’s Pushkin Square, resumed business today, said Svetlana Polyakova, a spokeswoman […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – November 19, 2014) Russian banks are the most vulnerable among the world’s large emerging market economies due to Western sanctions and near zero levels of economic growth, a Standard & Poor’s report released Wednesday said. Sanctions directly affect more than 50 percent of Russia’s banking sector, which is dominated by state financial institutions, the report […]
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(Interfax – November 18, 2014) The head of the Russian Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, has said that the economy would retain stability if things go less than well, i.e. if oil prices averages 80 dollars per barrel and sanctions continue until the end of 2017. Speaking in the State Duma on 18 November, she added that Russia’s financial system was […]
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