(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – March 19, 2015) With the Kremlin walls glowing crimson in the background Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin praised tens of thousands of adulating fans for their support of Russia’s annexation of Crimea one year ago. He acknowledged that issues have mounted since the annexation, but assured the cheering crowd – the size of […]
» Read more
(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, March 17, 2015) The West does not understand Russia, but it does understand very well indeed Russia’s elites; and as a result, it has seriously miscalculated in its dealings with Moscow about Ukraine, according to Boris Kagarlitsky, who argues the elites are ready to capitulate in the face of sanctions but the […]
» Read more
(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, March 5, 2015) The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize, to suggest that old rules and old expectations no longer apply and thereby increase uncertainty and fear. That explains why someone like Kseniya Sochak has suggested that she is next on Putin’s list now that the Kremlin has killed Boris Nemtsov and […]
» Read more
(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, February 27, 2015) Because Vladimir Putin seeks both recognition as the leader of a superpower and a new Yalta at which he and Western leaders will partition the world into spheres of influence and because he can only move toward that goal by new acts of aggression, the Kremlin leader is likely […]
» Read more
(Interfax – February 25, 2015) Moscow, 25 February: Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolay Patrushev thinks that the aim of the Western sanctions is to put pressure on the development of Russia’s mineral resource base, while Russia’s dependence on oil and gas prices may pose a threat to its national security. “The aim of the sanctions is to put pressure on the […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – February 24, 2015) Russians are increasingly worried about foreign states being a military threat, a new poll revealed. The independent Levada Center pollster said Saturday that 68 percent of Russians believe a foreign power threatens Russia’s national security, a 24 percentage point increase over the decade. The poll, taken Jan. 23 to 26, revealed that […]
» Read more
(Interfax – February 20, 2015) Sixty-eight percent of Russian citizens recently interviewed by the All Russian Center for Public Opinion Studies (VTsIOM) believe that their country faces a real military threat from outside, as compared with 52 percent of respondents in 2014, and 49 percent in 2000. Twenty-eight percent of those polled took the opposite view (42 percent in 2014). […]
» Read more
(Interfax – February 9, 2015) Economic problems and inflation rates leading to soaring prices are Russians’ biggest worries as mentioned by 23 percent and 22 percent of respondents respectively in a recent poll held by the Public Opinion Foundation. Compared to December 2014, the share of Russians upset by economic problems has grown by 9 percent. The Foundation polled 1,600 […]
» Read more
[“Inside’s Putin’s Head: The Crisis in Russia and Ukraine and Worst-Case Putin Scenarios” – Gordon M. Hahn – gordonhahn.com – January 31, 2015] Gordon Hahn considers the impact of the conflict in Ukraine and economic repercussions on the stability and viability of Russia’s Putin regime. The … Russian-NATO proxy war in Ukraine along with the Russian-Western economic cold war could destabilize Russia’s […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Panin – January 21, 2015) As the World Economic Forum kicks off in the Swiss alpine town of Davos on Wednesday, Moscow’s delegates will be working hard to convince participants that Russia is still a sound investment despite tensions over Ukraine and a faltering economy. Speaking at a curtain-raising news conference last week, Klaus […]
» Read more
(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 12, Issue 11 – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – Valery Dzutsev – January 20, 2015) The revelations of Alexander Sytnik, who recently left his position as a senior fellow at the Russian Institute for Strategic Research, a government-funded think tank, provides a rare glimpse into the inner mechanisms of policymaking in Russia. In his personal account of the […]
» Read more
(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Yekaterina Sinelschikova, RBTH – January 16, 2015) A bill that has passed its first reading the Russian State Duma would give the government the right to fine or ban foreign organizations it deems a security threat. Russia is trying to tighten its control over foreign organizations operating in the country. According to a […]
» Read more
(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, January 18, 2014) Russia’s latest turn to authoritarianism and isolationism was possible because of the provincialism of its leaders and people, a sense of being on the margins of the real world and one that prevents them from achieving greatness because they are less interested in that than in “seeking to present […]
» Read more
(Business New Europe PERSPECTIVE – bne.eu – Ben Aris in Moscow – January 13, 2015) We are in the middle of the worst political crisis since the end of the Cold War and there is a very real, albeit still remote, possibility of war in Europe. Without attempting a detailed analysis of how we got here, in the broadest brush […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Matthew Bodner – January 13, 2015) Tried to join the French Foreign Legion and didn’t make the cut? Don’t fret – the Russian military has created its own force of foreign citizens to fight Moscow’s wars. The Russian Defense Ministry last month announced that foreigners could enlist in the Russian military, a move ostensibly aimed […]
» Read more
(opendemocracy.net – Andreas Umland – January 9, 2015) Andreas Umland is a DAAD Associate Professor of European Studies at the Political Science Department of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy [“Some of the most influential German correspondents on Russia and Ukraine sympathise with the appeal, but, for specifically professional reasons, did not add their signatures.”] On December 5, 2014, 60 prominent German personalities […]
» Read more
(Window On Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, January 11, 2105) Mikhail Gorbachev’s current call for the “perestroika” of the international system is just as much a “cynical political scam” as was his original one, something that led many to conclude he wanted something more than just a more effective form of “authoritarian modernization,” according to Yevgeny Ikhlov. With the […]
» Read more
(opendemocracy.net – Polina Nikolskaya – January 7, 2015) Polina Nikolskaya is a correspondent at Kommersant Vlast. She has previously worked at Gazeta.ru and Lenta.ru. In 2014, the Russian government launched the ‘Global Education’ programme of postgraduate education abroad. But the reaction in Russia has been obstructive and hostile. In October 2014, Russia withdrew from the American Future Leaders Exchange (FLEX) […]
» Read more
(Interfax – December 8, 2014) Russians differ on whether Russia is currently in international isolation: 47 percent of the respondents surveyed by the Levada Center said they believe Russia is now in international isolation and 45 percent believe it is not. The poll, which surveys 1,600 respondents, was conducted in 134 populated areas of Russia on November 21-24. Over half […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – December 5, 2014) President Vladimir Putin told the nation on Thursday that Russia’s ongoing clash with the West – which he compared to Hitler – was inevitable and will only make the country stronger by mobilizing its economy and society around common goals and traditional moral values. In his annual address at […]
» Read more
MOSCOW. Dec 4 (Interfax) – Russia is not going to follow the way of isolationism, xenophobia, and a search for enemies, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. “We ourselves will never follow the way of self-isolation, xenophobia, suspiciousness, and the search for enemies. These all are manifestations of weakness, but we are strong and confident. Our goal is to gain as […]
» Read more
(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Vladimir Stakheev, Pavel Gazdyuk, RBTH – November 28, 2014) According to a survey that polled 1,600 people from 45 regions of Russia, 78% of respondents think that Russia has enemies. RBTH’s correspondent went out on the streets of Moscow to ask people who these enemies are and if Russia has any friends. [Video […]
» Read more
(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Nikolay Surkov, Gevorg Mirzayan, RBTH – November 24, 2014) The recent APEC and G20 summits yielded important dialogue between Moscow and the West on the Ukrainian crisis and a further strengthening of ties between Russia and its BRICS partners, though relations with West remain strained, as global media were keen to emphasize. Russian […]
» Read more
(Interfax – November 25, 2014) Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree on the collection of biometric data for personal identification of foreign citizens and stateless persons. The decree posted on the official legal information portal says foreigners and stateless persons applying for Russian entry visas or transit visas in their travels across Russian territory will be fingerprinted starting […]
» Read more
(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 […]
» Read more
(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, November 18, 2014) The G-20 meeting in Brisbane demonstrated that “the marginalization of Putin is a fait accompli,” that he has failed to split the West, and that its leaders have no intention of acting as Neville Chamberlain did in the late 1930s, according to Dmitry Oreshkin. The Moscow political scientist, who […]
» Read more
MOSCOW. Nov 18 (Interfax) – Russians have mixed feelings about the wish of some territories to separate from their mother states: 42% support this trend, 30% have a negative opinion and 28% are undecided, the Russian Public Opinion Study Center (VTsIOM) said. Muscovites and St. Petersburg residents exhibit the highest degree of understanding towards the wish to break away (53% […]
» Read more
(Business New Europe – bne.eu – bne/IntelliNews – November 17, 2014) Russian President Vladimir Putin met with the leaders of the western world at the weekend at the G20 summit, the first face-to-face meeting of all the world’s leaders since the Russian annexation of Crimea in March. “At the closing of the evening program of the G20 summit [in Brisbane] […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – November 17, 2014) President Vladimir Putin made an early departure Sunday from the two-day G20 Summit in Australia, after fielding an abundance of criticism from Western leaders over Russia’s allegedly aggressive role in the ongoing crisis in Ukraine, a move some observers say will inevitably be interpreted as a symbol of defeat. […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – November 13, 2014) The government is revising a program that allows graduates to study abroad at the state’s expense and could limit it to nations and universities that are deemed friendly to Russia, the education minister said, amid worsening relations with the West. “We are now carefully reviewing the list of universities […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – November 11, 2014) Cable news channel CNN will end its broadcasts in Russia starting on Jan.1, after the country passed a law restricting foreign ownership of media outlets. Time Warner, which owns CNN, said it had notified its Russian cable distributors VimpelCom and Akado that it would stop broadcasting in the country by Dec. 31, […]
» Read more
(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, November 9, 2014) Some Moscow commentators have compared Vladimir Putin’s speech to the Valdai Club meeting in to Winston Churchill’s 1946 “Iron Curtain” speech at Fulton, Missouri, but the Kremlin leader’s remarks in fact are far closer to those delivered by Adolf Hitler to Neville Chamberlain at Berchtesgaden in 1938, according to […]
» Read more
Subject: EVENT / “The Menace of Unreality: How the Kremlin Weaponizes Information, Culture, and Money” Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2014 From: Institute of Modern Russia <info@imrussia.org> Upcoming Event IMR Report on Kremlin Information War To Be Launched in Washington, D.C. On November 13, editor-in-chief of The Interpreter, Michael Weiss, and journalist Peter Pomerantsev will present their report titled “The Menace […]
» Read more
(opendemocracy.net – Anna Arutunyan – November 3, 2014) Anna Arutunyan is an independent journalist and author of ‘The Putin Mystique.’ She lives in Moscow As the Ukraine crisis drags on and as the transformative effects of Crimea’s annexation become increasingly apparent, every time Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, opens his mouth, the bewildered world looks to what he says, for a […]
» Read more
(Institute of Modern Russia – imrussia.org – Olga Khvostunova- October 28, 2014) On the last day of the annual meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club, Vladimir Putin delivered a speech in which he accused the United States of attempting to establish a global dictatorship. Olga Khvostunova, editor-in-chief of imrussia.org, speculates that the Russian president might have been subconsciously speaking […]
» Read more
(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, November 4, 2014) One of the most frequently invoked explanations for the inability of leaders to cope with a challenge is that it is something fundamentally new that they could not have been expected to recognize, understand, and know precisely how to respond. That has been the case in Ukraine and the […]
» Read more
(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Tom Balmforth – MOSCOW – October 29, 2014) Rossiya Segodnya, Russia’s state-run media conglomerate, is reportedly preparing to open local bureaus in 29 world capitals, a move expanding the Kremlin’s global media presence amid what senior Russian officials call an “information war” with the West. The new bureaus are set to facilitate local-language radio programming and […]
» Read more
(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Chris Weafer – October 24, 2014) Chris Weafer is Senior Partner at Macro-Advisory, which offers bespoke Russia-CIS consulting. Many of the headlines about Russia in recent months have quite rightly focused on the geopolitical risks and the sanctions impact on the economy. To that has recently been added the surprisingly abrupt fall in the […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – October 24, 2014) Russia has ranked 17th on HSBC Bank’s annual list of the of the world’s best countries for expats, beating other destinations like Japan, France and the United Kingdom. Expats in 34 countries were asked in the HSBC Expat poll published Wednesday to judge their experiences on living abroad in three main categories […]
» Read more
(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Galiya Ibragimova, RBTH – October 21, 2014) Since Russia’s Justice Ministry received the right to declare organizations “foreign agents” without their consent, the number of NGOs on the list has grown substantially In the two years since the passage of Russia’s controversial law on NGOs in July 2012, human rights and research organizations […]
» Read more
(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 11, Issue 183 – Pavel Felgenhauer – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – October 16, 2014) In a series of recently published interviews, President Vladimir Putin (kremlin.ru, October 15), Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev (Interfax, October 15) and national security council secretary Nikolai Patrushev (Rossiyskaya Gazeta, October 15) have outlined Moscow’s strategic vision of the world after the […]
» Read more
MOSCOW, October 15 (RIA Novosti) – Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law reducing the possible share of foreign stockholders in the Russian media to 20 percent, says the corresponding document published on the Russian government’s official legal information web portal Wednesday. “Unless otherwise stipulated by an international treaty … a Russian legal entity with a foreign participation share […]
» Read more
(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – October 15, 2014) It’s futile for the U.S. and its allies to “blackmail” Russia over the Ukraine crisis, President Vladimir Putin said in a newspaper interview. Russia’s partners should remember the risks involved in disputes between nuclear powers, Putin said. He accused Barack Obama of adopting a “hostile” approach in naming Russia as a threat to […]
» Read more
MOSCOW, October 14 (RIA Novosti) – Russia is not going to introduce new measures in response to Western economic sanctions, Russian Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov told reporters on Tuesday. “We are not interested in responding [to Western sanctions] with some unreasonable measures. It’s our [Western] colleagues who should be thinking about when they will lift [the sanctions], […]
» Read more
(Interfax – October 12, 2014) Over half of Russians (61 percent) admit that fluctuations in the exchange rate of the ruble have a certain impact on their lives while 13 percent don’t notice any impact, a Public Opinion fund poll indicates. In the opinion of 62 percent of respondents a stronger ruble is better for the Russian economy and only […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – October 9, 2014) A poll published Wednesday revealed that a majority of Russians believe their country is perceived as “interesting” abroad, while few believe foreigners think Russia is “authoritarian.” The poll’s results, which showed that most Russians believe the country is viewed favorably abroad, may be a surprise to some in light of the West’s […]
» Read more
MOSCOW, October 8 (RIA Novosti) – Speaking about the possible removal of sanctions against Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday that the matter was for Western states to decide. “Sanctions is the business of our western colleagues, the business of the countries that decided to use this illegal instrument for some reason, possibly just to take their frustration […]
» Read more
(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, October 8, 2014) The Russian Federation is seeking a revision in the international system but lacks the economic strength to be a new pillar, according to Fedor Lyukanov. And as a result, Moscow will seek to make up for that shortcoming by sudden and dramatic foreign policy moves as it has been […]
» Read more
MOSCOW, October 3 (RIA Novosti) – Russia is set to develop exchange programs for schoolchildren with countries in Europe and Asia, Deputy Minister of Education Veniamin Kaganov said on Friday. “We have sufficient [student] exchange with many countries. Agreements on cooperation in the educational field are signed with over 70 countries across the world. Quite a few international exchange programs […]
» Read more
(RIA Novosti – Moscow, October 1, 2014) It is absurd to raise the issue of a possible closure of the Russian borders, the Russian president’s press secretary Dmitriy Peskov has said, commenting on a survey by the Levada Centre about the possibility of a return of the Iron Curtain. “The absurdity of this survey does not require any answer,” Peskov […]
» Read more