Politics, Government, Protests, Elections
From: Kirk Bennett (kirkbennett7@yahoo.com) Date: September 24, 2014 Subject: Reflections on Russians and Ukrainians Kirk Bennett is a former Foreign Service officer who served in both Moscow and Kyiv. The opinions expressed are his own and do not represent the views of the U.S. government. Amid all the analyses of the crisis in Ukraine there is a subtle element of […]
» Read more
(Interfax – September 8, 2014) Gorki, 8 September: Some 105,000 Ukrainian citizens have been granted the refugee status, some 500 people apply every day for participation in the programme for voluntary resettlement of compatriots from abroad, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitriy Kozak has said. “I would like to remind you that the (refugee – Interfax) status has been currently granted to […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Allison Quinn – September 5, 2014) As the NATO summit gets under way in Wales and world leaders put on a united front against the growing threat posed by radical terrorist organization the Islamic State, continued bickering between Russia and the West over events in Ukraine threatens to give the “apocalyptic” group carte blanche to […]
» Read more
MOSCOW. Sept 5 (Interfax) – The updated Russian military doctrine will not designate a potential enemy and conditions of a preventive nuclear strike against it; such information is available in classified directives, former Russian General Staff Chief Gen. of the Army Yuri Baluyevsky, who co-authored the 2010 military doctrine of Russia, told Interfax-AVN on Friday. “The state military doctrine is […]
» Read more
(PONARS Eurasia – ponarseurasia.org – Vladimir Gelman – September 2014) Distinguished Professor, Political Sciences and Sociology; Aleksanteri Institute at the Finnish Centre for Russian and Eastern European Studies In the 2000s, most experts considered the role of political opposition in Russia as peripheral at best. But with the protest wave of 2011-12, opposition actors and movements reentered the political arena. What factors […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – September 2, 2014) On the 10th anniversary of the Beslan terrorist attack in which more than 330 people died, a poll revealed Monday that fewer Russians think authorities mishandled the crisis than in 2004. The poll, conducted by the independent Levada Center from Aug. 22 to 25, showed a less critical attitude toward the authorities’ […]
» Read more
(Interfax – Moscow, September 2, 2014) The Russian president’s press secretary, Dmitriy Peskov, has said that at the end of its contract with American company Ketchum, the Kremlin will have to decide on the future of their cooperation. “Communication services are largely useless now,” the Russian president’s press secretary said in an interview with [Russian-language] Forbes magazine (http://tinyurl.com/p9xko9j). “At a […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – September 2, 2014) With Russia’s political opposition either sidelined or splintered over Russian policy in Ukraine, dissenting cultural figures have become the new focus of pro-Kremlin witch hunts, with state media treating them as a political force and accusing them of treachery. The practice has echoes of Soviet times, when cultural figures […]
» Read more
MOSCOW, August 29 (RIA Novosti) – “Fact-hiding” is a distinctive Western behavior in the events in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday. “It seems to me that ‘fact-hiding’ is a characteristic feature of the position, first and foremost, by the US and a number of European countries in regard to everything that is happening in Ukraine, be it […]
» Read more
(opendemocracy.net – David Marples – August 22, 2014) David Marples is Distinguished University Professor in the Department of History and Classics, University of Alberta, Canada. For summer 2014 he is Visiting Professor at the Slavic and Eurasian Research Center, Hokkaido University, Japan. [DJ: Just to clarify: One word in this article has been tweaked so that spam filters do not reject this […]
» Read more
(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, August 20, 2014) “It is time to acknowledge the responsibility of the successful minority before the 90 percent of [Russian] citizens, whose hopes for a better future were deceived” following the collapse of the Soviet system, and for that minority to make changes “in the interests of the majority which suffered these […]
» Read more
(Interfax – August 19, 2014) A relative majority of Russians (41 percent) see the August 19, 1991, putsch in the former Soviet Union as a tragedy which had harmful implications for the country and its people. The number has grown 14 percent in the past 20 years, from 27 percent in 1994, the Levada Center pollster told Interfax, referring to […]
» Read more
(RIA Novosti – August 14, 2014) Moscow, 14 August: Russian Prime Minister Dmitriy Medvedev’s Twitter account [https://twitter.com/MedvedevRussia], which was hacked on Thursday [14 August], may have been hacked in response to the law that imposes stricter liability on bloggers and the partial ban on anonymous access to the Internet via [public] wi-fi networks, or because of the strained relations between […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – August 14, 2014) Only a “thin line” separates Russia and Ukraine from going to war, a pro-Kremlin lawmaker said, arguing that Moscow has been careful in its policies to avoid tipping the scale and that Kiev should demonstrate more restraint. The head of the federal parliament’s International Affairs Committee, Alexei Pushkov, said Wednesday that the […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – August 14, 2014) As President Vladimir Putin touched down in the Crimean city of Sevastopol on Wednesday, a poll revealed that his support among voters has almost doubled since January, largely due to the Kremlin’s policies in Crimea and Ukraine, analysts said. The turmoil in Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea in […]
» Read more
(Interfax – Moscow, August 13, 2014) By shelling Russian territory, Ukraine would like to provoke a prolonged conflict with it and Russia’s response should be extremely careful, head of the Russian State Duma International Affairs Committee Aleksey Pushkov (One Russia faction) has said. “Our actions must be extremely level-headed. After all this could entail a prolonged conflict and Ukraine will […]
» Read more
(Interfax – August 13, 2014) The election rating of Vladimir Putin has practically doubled since the beginning of the year and he would have won a convincing victory if the next presidential election were held next Sunday, Levada Center sociologists told Interfax. Some 52 percent of the respondents who intend to cast their ballots mentioned Putin in the first turn […]
» Read more
MOSCOW. Aug 13 (Interfax) – A total of 63% of Russian citizens believe that actions and statements by Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding the situation in Ukraine assist in the peaceful resolution of the conflict, the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) said citing a poll held. This stance is mostly shared by residents of cities with populations of over […]
» Read more
MOSCOW, August 13 (RIA Novosti) – Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said Wednesday that a possible food shortage and a resulting imbalance in food prices that could occur in the country’s westernmost exclave could easily be compensated by Belarus. “There is a case in particular [of price imbalance] and that’s the Kaliningrad region, which is extremely close to Belarus, […]
» Read more
(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, August 12, 2014) Aleksey Levinson, a Levada Center sociologist, says that iron curtains like the one now being erected around Russia are a political strategy that reflects weakness rather than strength and that its appearance is not the end of the story but somewhere much earlier. In an interview published in this […]
» Read more
(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Vladimir Abarinov – August 11, 2014) When Nadezhda Tolokonnikova arrived at penal colony IK-14 in August 2012, a deputy warden proudly announced: “As far as my political convictions go, I am a Stalinist.” Tolokonnikova soon learned what that meant in practice. One year into her sentence for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred,” the Pussy Riot activist launched a hunger strike […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – August 12, 2014) The Kremlin’s historic building complex in the heart of Moscow is undergoing a series of changes to make it more accessible to tourists, and the presidential administration’s unused offices may be torn down to restore the world heritage site’s “historic look.” Most of the presidential administration has already been […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – August 12, 2014) About one in every 10 Russians wants to emigrate from the country, a recent poll has shown, and while few seem to be actively pursuing their wish, the number is significant because it represents mostly young and educated professionals. Among those who said they wanted to leave Russia, 47 percent were motivated […]
» Read more
(Business New Europe – bne.eu – August 11, 2014) While the world’s attention is focused on the fighting in Iraq and Ukraine, a threatened resurgence of the long frozen conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh looks to have been averted. Following several small-scale clashes around the separatist republic in recent weeks, the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed at a meeting hosted by […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexey Eremenko – August 11, 2014) Many extreme sports, from snowboarding to air racing, are known health hazards. But only one can lead to indiscriminate beating, allegations of terrorism, jail and even self-imposed exile – and all you need to do is take a stroll through supposedly public land. Dozens of Russian officials, from President […]
» Read more
(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, August 10, 2014) Ever more people around the world want Vladimir Putin to leave the scene but very few have asked themselves what Russia will be like after his departure. One who has, Sergey Klimovsky, suggests that Russia will either be a fascist state even worse than the current regime or a […]
» Read more
(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Olga Tanas – August 8, 2014) From his perch as Vladimir Putin’s adviser for building ties with fellow former Soviet republics, Sergei Glazyev perceives the world shifting to a war footing. There’s a war waged against Russia with economic sanctions and military conflicts roiling Ukraine to Iraq, according to Glazyev, 53, an academician and a native […]
» Read more
(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, August 7, 2014) During the Cold War, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists rated the level of danger of a nuclear war in terms of the number of minutes the clock was running before midnight. Now, Russian historian Yury Feltshtinsky has told a Polish newspaper that Vladimir Putin has set the world’s […]
» Read more
(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, August 8, 2014) Putinism, Igor Eidman says, is “a combination of the practice and ideology of the authoritarian regime of Putin, which operates on a corrupt bureaucratic oligarchy and is in many respects close to a fascist dictatorship,” with its “aggressive annexationist foreign policy, state-monopoly capitalism, force structures, and chauvinism and traditionalism” […]
» Read more
WASHINGTON, August 7 (RIA Novosti), Lyudmila Chernova – Russia’s food embargo is a smart move on Moscow’s part that is set to show the United States and its allies that Russia is not going to give in to Western pressure, an American economist and co-director of a US-based research center told RIA Novosti Thursday. “It is smart of Moscow to […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – August 7, 2014) President Vladimir Putin’s approval rating has reached a record high of 87 percent, according to the results of a survey published Wednesday by the independent Levada Center pollster. In May, Putin enjoyed an approval rating of 83 percent, its highest since 2008, according to major U.S. pollster Gallup. Putin’s popularity at home […]
» Read more
MOSCOW, August 6 (RIA Novosti) – Alexei Pushkov, a senior Russian lawmaker and chairman of the State Duma foreign affairs committee, on Wednesday lambasted American media outlets, saying the fifth pillar of US democracy has devolved into a State Department spin-off. “The US media are dead. Now they are just subdivisions of the US State Department,” Pushkov said in a […]
» Read more
(Interfax – Moscow, August 5, 2014) Russian human rights ombudsman Ella Pamfilova has recommended to Ukrainian journalists to turn attention to the creation of a humanitarian corridor for Ukrainian servicemen and said she expects Kiev to open corridors to evacuate sick children, who are staying in the zone of the armed conflict in the southeast of the republic. “We can […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – August 4, 2014) With tensions between Russia and many Western countries mounting, some people think that Russian President Vladimir Putin is being unfairly painted in a bad light. In fact, they feel so strongly about this that they have come up with their own Twitter hashtag to make their case. Tagging their tweets with #blameputin, […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – August 5, 2014) When the U.S. government announced its first round of sanctions against President Vladimir Putin’s friends over the Ukraine conflict in May, it made no bones about their aim: Increase the cost for them of Putin continuing his course and they will influence him to back off or, ultimately, throw […]
» Read more
Subject: The collapse of the Soviet Union: What was it — the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century or simply a major disaster? [Adomeit’s second note] Date: Sun, 03 Aug 2014 From: Hannes Adomeit (hannes.adomeit@t-online.de) The collapse of the Soviet Union: What was it — the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century or simply a major disaster? Hannes […]
» Read more
Subject: AW: 2014-#166-Johnson’s Russia List [Adomeit’s first note] Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 From: Hannes Adomeit (hannes.adomeit@t-online.de) From a senior German Russia expert: I completely agree with the observation expressed in yesterday’s issue of the senior U.S. official and the senior U.S. academic about JRL’s loss of impartiality. The bias is also amply reflected in the inclusion of those poisonous […]
» Read more
Subject: language, again Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 From: Harley D. Balzer <balzerh@georgetown.edu> Patrick Armstrong issued a major attack on Aslund’s characterization of Putin’s comment about the destruction of the Soviet Union. He states: So it is now perhaps time to see what it was that Putin actually said. Here it is: first in Russian, “Прежде всего следует признать, что […]
» Read more
Subject: “Krupneyshaya katastrofa” translation Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2014 From: Serge Markov <semar1@comcast.net> On the matter of Putin’s 2005 characterization of the fall of the Soviet Union, any educated native Russian speaker will tell you that krupneyshaya katastrofa can be rendered either as “a major” or as “the greatest catastrophe” depending on context. Methinks the context of Putin’s address favors […]
» Read more
Subject: Debate over Putin quote on the Soviet collapse Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 17:29:30 -0400 From: Steve Shabad <steve.shabad@verizon.net> As a Russian-English translator for my entire adult life (almost half a century), I feel compelled to weigh in on the debate between Anders Aslund and Patrick Armstrong over the famous Putin quote on the fall of the Soviet Union. […]
» Read more
(Interfax – August 4, 2014) Twenty per cent of Russians think that the number of people leaving forever will grow in the coming years, 24 percent are certain it will decrease, and 56 percent failed to respond, the survey showed. When asked why fellow citizens leave Russia, 9 percent said “in search of better life and better financial position”, 2 […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – August 4, 2014) President Vladimir Putin’s decision to annex Crimea and his treatment of the eastern Ukrainian insurgency have rallied nationalist support and altered Russia’s political landscape, politicians and analysts told The Moscow Times. The ongoing political crisis between Russia and the West over the armed conflict in Ukraine has pushed nationalist-leaning […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – August 1, 2014) A law requiring popular bloggers to register as mass media took effect Friday, tightening government control over the country’s influential online voices but leaving some uncertainty as to how strict the immediate scrutiny will become. In accordance with the new law, any blog that receives more than 3,000 hits […]
» Read more
From: Patrick Armstrong (gpa@magma.ca) Sent: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 Subject: DEADLY QUOTATIONS PART 2 A number of people have challenged my (and the official Kremlin translators’) choice of “a major” for “krupneyshey” in Putin’s famous sentence “Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century.” I stand by what I said: he did […]
» Read more
Subject: RE: 2014-#166-Johnson’s Russia List/Patrick Armstrong Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 19:31:4 From: Anders Aslund <AAslund@PIIE.COM> Dear David, Absurdly, Patrick Armstrong attacks me (JRL 166 #6) for translating Putin’s words “крушение Советского Союза было крупнейшей геополитической катастрофой века” with the words “the collapse of the Soviet Union was the biggest geopolitical disaster of the century.” Well, that is how it […]
» Read more
(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, July 30, 2014) Commentators in Moscow and the West ever more frequently draw parallels between Vladimir Putin’s ideas and actions and those of fascist regimes in the first part of the 20th century, but few have focused on the fact that one of the Kremlin leader’s most-cherished ideas, that of the “Russian […]
» Read more
(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, July 26, 2014) Russian liberals have lived through many periods of illiberal governance in the past, have devised various strategies to cope because the repressive regimes have been so different, but have managed to survive and see their country change course at least for a time in their direction, according to Aleksey […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – July 23, 2014) Ukraine’s Interior Ministry on Tuesday accused the pro-Russian insurgency of attempting to procure white phosphorus ammunition, whose use is limited by international agreements. The ministry cited intercepted conversations between the insurgents, who allegedly spoke about obtaining phosphorus missiles for Grad missile launchers at their disposal. The rebels wanted to use the phosphorus […]
» Read more
(Interfax – July 22, 2014) Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed that the fight against radicalism in Russia will not result in a state clampdown on civil society and said he expects the Russian public to help prevent one, Russian privately-owned news agency Interfax reported on 22 July. Putin made the statements at a meeting of the Russian Security Council […]
» Read more
(Interfax – July 22, 2014) The “scenario” that has been used in Ukraine by “external” forces will not happen in Russia, President Vladimir Putin has said. He made these remarks at a meeting with the Russian Security Council, as reported by privately-owned news agency Interfax. Speaking about the so-called “colour revolutions” and in particular Ukraine, Putin said: “This is absolutely […]
» Read more