Ukraine’s reformers are figuring out how to move the levers of power from Kiev and the oligarchs to the individual regions – but without fracturing the country.
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Minor clashes continue along the conflict line in Ukraine, but behind the front lines U.S. and Russian officials are waging a war of words. Russia and the United States have each accused the other of threatening to undo the ceasefire, while in reality both the Russian and Ukrainian sides are largely respecting the cease-fire terms of the Minsk agreement. Russian military movements […]
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In just over a year, Ukraine has seen a political revolution, two elections (one presidential, one parliamentary), an economic collapse and a Russian invasion resulting in a “hybrid war” that has ravaged the country. Its new western-leaning government has struggled to maintain sovereignty as well as stability.
» Read moreJohnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#84 :: Tuesday 28 April 2015 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php 1. Reuters: Russians seethe over Western snub of war anniversary parade. 2. Eurasianet.es: “Ukraine’s European discourse does not correspond to reality”: Interview with […]
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MOSCOW. April 28 (Interfax) – The chairman of the Russian Federation Council’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Konstantin Kosachyov, believes that the latest Ukraine-EU summit had a ‘sobering-up’ effect on Kyiv. “At the Ukraine-EU summit, Brussels focused on things that sobered Kyiv up – the pace and scope of constitutional and other reforms in Ukraine, the fight against corruption, the restructuring of […]
» Read moreJohnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#83 :: Monday PM 27 April 2015 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php UKRAINE 1. Moscow Times: Matthew Kupfer, De-Communization Won’t Help Ukraine. 2. Interfax: Poroshenko calls on EU leaders to give Ukraine prospect […]
» Read moreJohnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#82 :: Monday 27 April 2015 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php RUSSIA 1. Interfax: Putin confesses he expected radical upturn in relations with West after fall of the Communist regime. 2. Interfax: Putin […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, April 27, 2015) Yesterday, Yuri Lutsenko, the leader of the Poroshenko Bloc in the Verkhova Rada, said that the probability of the renewal of military actions in eastern Ukraine was “more than 80 percent,” a statement that underscores analyst Andrey Illarionov’s argument in Tallinn that “there is no non-military solution” for the […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – TRADE BLOG: Iana Dreyer in Brussels – April 27, 2015) The likelihood of trilateral talks involving Ukraine, the EU and Russia over Ukraine’s implementation of the deep and comprehensive free trade area (DCFTA) embedded in its Association Agreement with the EU – the deal that triggered the Ukraine crisis – is low. The continuing […]
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KYIV. April 27 (Interfax) – Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has called on the European Union to give Ukraine the prospect of EU membership. “I am calling on the EU to admit that Ukraine, like any other European state that respects and is ready to defend common values, can become an EU member in the future, supporting ambitions for European integration […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – April 24, 2015) President Petro Poroshenko said he’s ready to place Ukraine under martial law if his army is attacked in the embattled eastern part of the country. “If Ukrainian troops are attacked, we can do everything to introduce martial law,” Poroshenko said in an interview with the Ukraina television channel on Friday. “I will submit […]
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Subject: From Igor Rotar (a Russian journalist) Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2015 13:46:00 -0700 From: Igor Rotar <igorotar@gmail.com> Dear colleagues, My name is Igor Rotar. I am a veteran journalist and researcher who recently received a “green card” in the USA and currently lives in San Diego. I am the author of three books about ethnic conflicts in the Soviet […]
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Vladimir Putin’s annual call-in show is not where I usually look for important statements of Russian policy. Most of the four-hour event is devoted to semi-comical political pandering (Mr. Putin presenting himself as the friend of struggling dairy farmers, for example). Still, last week’s extravaganza contained unmistakable hints of a new line on Ukraine. To cope with Russian policy in […]
» Read moreJohnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#81 :: Friday 24 April 2015 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php RUSSIA 1. Russian Foreign Ministry: http://www.mid.ru/bdomp//brp_4.nsf/english/0BCA9A90832725FC43257E3000210820
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Katya Gorchinskaya – KYIV, April 21, 2015) Yulia Tymoshenko didn’t have much of an income in 2014. The former Ukrainian prime minister spent part of the year in prison, part of it rehabilitating in the hospital, and much of it in back-to-back campaigns for president and parliament. But nevertheless, she managed to buy a luxury car, […]
» Read moreJohnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#80 :: Wednesday 22 April 2015 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php RUSSIA 1. Business New Europe: Russia faces ‘new reality’ as it counts cost of Ukraine crisis, says Medvedev. 2. Government.ru: Government report on […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Sergei Kuznetsov in Kyiv – April 22, 2015) While Ukraine’s steel, heavy engineering and power sectors have been crippled by the war in the east and the economic crisis, agriculture has become the country’s leading source of export revenue and the only sector putting in a positive performance. Even so, farmers are facing difficulties […]
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KYIV. April 22 (Interfax) – Over a thousand miners who approached the Presidential Administration edifice on Wednesday morning to deliver their demands have broken through security cordons on Bankova Street in downtown Kyiv and came close to the building. The protesters are pounding their helmets against the ground and shouting. They have not expressed their demands but their behavior is […]
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The murder of a pro-Russian opposition politician and a journalist in Kyiv threaten to further divide Ukraine. While many are pointing the finger at Moscow, others are blaming the government for not doing enough.
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No one in Russian-speaking Kharkiv wants to follow rebels into open revolt. But locals say Kiev has no idea how badly it’s aggravating the region with its initiatives, including the ‘Great Wall of Ukraine.’
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Henry Meyer, Daryna Krasnolutska, Volodymyr Verbyany – April 22, 2015) Russia said it wants a “neutral” and unified Ukraine as it accused the North Atlantic Treaty Organization of seeking to turn its neighbor into a hostile state. The U.S. wields enormous influence over Ukraine, while Russia wants the people of its “near neighbor” to have a […]
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(Interfax – April 21, 2015) The U.S. does not plan to deliver Javelin shoulder-mounted anti-tank missile systems to Ukraine for the moment and is sending defensive gear alone to that country, U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Tefft said on Ekho Moskvy radio. He said that the U.S. is supplying bullet-proof jackets, glasses and night-vision systems to Ukraine, all of which are […]
» Read moreJohnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#79 :: Tuesday 21 April 2015 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php RUSSIA 1. Forbes.com: Mark Adomanis, Would Liberal Reform ‘Cure Russia’s Ailments?’ 2. Russia Direct: Putin’s Direct Line, Russia’s culture wars and the […]
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“Suddenly, we are the enemy,” Irina whispers to me from the bottom bunk as our Moscow-bound train pulls into Russian border control at around 3am. A year after war broke out in the Donbass, the Kiev-Moscow train is one of the few remaining passenger rail lines linking Russia and Ukraine. http://www.politico.eu/article/the-whispering-train/
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 12, Issue 73 – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – Pavel K. Baev) “Boring” is perhaps the prevalent impression of President Vladimir Putin’s televised four-hour-long Q & A session that aired last Thursday (April 16), which was meant to demonstrate his good health and relaxed attitude to the great many problems worrying his loyal subjects. The three […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, April 20, 2015) Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill believes the Ukrainian crisis is a challenge to the unity of the Russian church and is opposed to attempts to lend the crisis a religious dimension. “The Ukrainian crisis and the desire of certain political forces to place it in the context of faith are a challenge […]
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MOSCOW. April 21 (Interfax) – When building its ethnic policy the government must take into account that the many years of propaganda hysteria which was stoked in order to instill hatred towards Russia in Crimean Tartars did not pass without a trace, Crimean governor Sergei Aksyonov said. “Kyiv and its allies in Mejlis consistently pursued the line towards pitting the […]
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Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#78 :: Monday 20 April 2015 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php RUSSIA 1. Moscow Times: Fyodor Lukyanov, Putin Wants Peaceful Coexistence With the West. 2. The National Interest: Graham Allison and Dimitri K. […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Anna Yalovkina – Anna Yalovkina is a journalist from Kyrgyzstan and a correspondent at the internet portal Vecherny Bishkek. She writes for lenta.ru and films video for RFE/RL – April 17, 2015) As oppression heats up in Russia, post-revolutionary Ukraine is attracting political émigrés from the Russian opposition. From the moment the Maidan started in Ukraine, Russian authorities rushed […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – bne IntelliNews – April 20, 2015) Ukraine is ready to play hard ball in its bid to restructure $15.3bn in foreign debt, was the signal sent by Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko to corporate bondholders in Washington on April 17. The government wants to secure a $40bn bailout package assembled with the International Monetary Fund […]
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DONETSK. April 20 (Interfax) – Four people were killed in hostilities in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) in the period of April 11-17, DPR Ombudsperson Darya Morozova said. She posted her weekly socioeconomic report for the DPR on her website on Monday. Morozova quoted official statistics from the DPR Health Ministry and forensic medicine authorities to say that the […]
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We find ourselves in an increasingly risky strategic environment. The Ukrainian crisis has threatened the stability of relations between Russiaand the West, including the nuclear dimension — as became apparent last month when it was reported that Russian defense officials had advised President Vladimir V. Putin to consider placing Russia’s nuclear arsenal on alert during last year’s crisis in Crimea.
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, April 20, 2015) Ukrainians and Russians differ fundamentally in the source of sovereignty in their countries, with Ukrainians, like citizens of Western democracies, viewing the people as sovereign and with the Russians, like the subjects of autocracies of all kinds, assuming that their supreme leader is, according to a new poll. Irina […]
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LVIV. April 20 (Interfax) – During the Fearless Guardian 2015 international military exercise, Ukraine’s National Guard intends to learn from the United States military the practices they have used in operations worldwide, Ukraine’s Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said. “The U.S. special task force has experience received in operations worldwide, and we want to use this experience. Wars are won by […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, April 17, 2015) Vladimir Putin’s statements about Ukraine in his “direct line” program yesterday look “moderate” but only in comparison with the militaristic declarations of the Russian defense minister and chief of the Russian general staff. But no one should be deceived into thinking he has changed his mind or assumptions, according to […]
» Read moreJohnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#77 :: Friday PM 17 April 2015 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php Russia 1. Kremlin.ru: Direct line with Vladimir Putin (transcript continued). 2. Business New Europe: Putin says Russia has weathered sanctions storm. […]
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‘We have a total kleptocratic state,’ says Yegor Sobolev, Ukraine’s lead anti-graft legislator; But he is cheerfully confident that ‘we will win’
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“Could a U.S. response to Russia’s action in Ukraine provoke a confrontation that leads to a U.S.-Russia War?” This jolting question is raised by Graham Allison and Dimitri Simes in the cover article of The National Interest.
» Read moreJohnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#76 :: Friday AM 17 April 2015 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php Russia 1. Kremlin.ru: Direct line with Vladimir Putin (partial transcript). 2. Kremlin.ru: Answers to journalists’ questions after Direct Line.
» Read moreJohnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#75 :: Wednesday 15 April 2015 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php Russia 1. Moscow Times: ‘Optimization’ of Health Reform Causing Russian Mortality Rate to Rise. 2. Kremlin.ru: Working meeting with Healthcare Minister Veronika […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 12, Issue 69 – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – Roger McDermott – April 14, 2015) All parties to the Minsk Two agreement, which has resulted in a shaky ceasefire in southeastern Ukraine since February 12, express varying levels of concern about a possible full resumption of hostilities. On April 10, the pro-Russian Ukrainian rebel leader who heads the Donetsk […]
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KYIV. April 15 (Interfax) – Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) chief Valentyn Nalyvaichenko claims that Russian presidential aide Vladislav Surkov was in Kyiv on February 20-21, 2014. “We are convinced that there is a need to investigate both crimes committed by Ukrainian officials and the role of Russian high-ranking officials in the events in Kyiv’s Maidan. I can confirm that we […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Graham Stack in Kyiv, Mari Bastashevski in Donetsk – April 15, 2015) The Russian ruble is gaining ground against the hryvnia across rebel-held parts of East Ukraine’s Donbas region, 19 years after Kyiv introduced the national currency to end the country’s membership of the ruble zone. As Eastern Ukraine heads towards becoming a frozen […]
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Ukraine hits ‘dead end’ as lasting peace deal eludes leaders. The foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine on Monday called for incremental steps to de-escalate the fighting in eastern Ukraine. But the two sides have yet to agree on a long-term political settlement
» Read moreJohnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#74 :: Tuesday PM 14 April 2015 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php Ukraine 1. Reuters: War and poverty bring doubt to heartland of Ukraine’s pro-Europe revolt. 2. The Independent (UK): Ukraine crisis: After […]
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(Interfax – April 14, 2015) Foreign ministers from the Normandy Quartet countries have called on the trilateral Contact Group for Ukraine to agree a schedule for the withdrawal of weapons below a 100 mm caliber from the line of contact in Donbass, the chair of the Normandy format’s ministerial meeting in Berlin said in a statement. “We furthermore call for […]
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[DJ: This individual is active in business in Kyiv and Moscow and requests anonymity] Subject: Re: 2015-#72-Johnson’s Russia List/#45. Rossiyskaya Gazeta: Senior Russian judge claims legal justification for Crimea annexation. (Valeriy Zorkin) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 From: Anonymous 1. I am a putinista, albeit not a passionate/blind one. 2. I am a doctor and a professor of international law. […]
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… With most of its scarce resources focused on fighting Russia’s proxies in the east, Ukraine’s leaders have watched their economy fall off a cliff, surviving only by the grace of massive loans from Western institutions like the International Monetary Fund, which approved another $17.5 billion last month to be disbursed over the next four years. But that assistance has […]
» Read moreJohnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#73 :: Tuesday AM 14 April 2015 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php Russia 1. Moscow Times: Swedish Admiral Admits ‘Russian Submarine’ Was Actually Civilian Boat. 2. Business New Europe: Graham Stack, The rise […]
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