Category: Newslinks
NEWSLINK New York Times: Columbia University Press to Publish New Translations of Russian Literature
NEWSLINK New York Times: Yevgeny Primakov, Former Premier of Russia, Dies at 85
NEWSLINK Asia Times/M.K.Bhadrakumar: Russia braces for ‘Euromaidan’ in Armenia
NEWSLINK BBC: Ukraine crisis: Yanukovych regrets bloodshed in Kiev
Ukraine’s former President Viktor Yanukovych has said he accepts some responsibility for the killings that led to his overthrow in February 2014.
» Read moreNEWSLINK Kyiv Post: Resident of Russian-held Horlivka: ‘We have nothing’
Night has fallen over the Russian-occupied city ofHorlivka that lies 10 kilometers from the war front.
» Read moreNEWSLINK Wall Street Journal: Russia Weathers Financial Risks but More Remain, Bank of Russia Says
Unpredictability of oil prices and ruble’s rate poses threats, as does a U.S. rate increase, bank’s report says
» Read moreNEWSLINK Reuters: U.S. to pre-position tanks, artillery in Baltics, eastern Europe
The United States will pre-position tanks, artillery and other military equipment in eastern and central Europe, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced on Tuesday, moving to reassure NATO allies unnerved by Russian involvement in Ukraine.
» Read moreNEWSLINK Financial Times: Senior Putin aide warns over Russia-US relations
One of Vladimir Putin’s most senior officials has warned the US against a plan to store heavy weapons in eastern Europe as Nato draws up contingency plans for conflict in Europe for the first time since the cold war. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a7c7557e-17f0-11e5-a130-2e7db721f996.html
» Read moreNEWSLINK AP: US hopes Russia may change direction when Vladimir Putin is gone
US defence secretary Ash Carter speculates that Russia may be more ‘forward-looking’ after its current president has moved on http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/22/us-and-nato-need-strong-but-balanced-approach-to-russia-under-putin
» Read moreNEWSLINK Reuters: After midnight in the library, Putin sets out his world view
It was two minutes before midnight when Russian President Vladimir Putin finally entered the meeting room in the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library, more than three hours late, to be interviewed by a dozen exhausted journalists. http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/20/us-russia-putin-idUSKBN0P00JG20150620
» Read moreNEWSLINK Wall Street Journal/Edward Lucas: Buttressing the Front Line Against Putin. The U.S. must compel Nordic and Baltic states to put aside old prejudices and link arms against the Russian threat.
Russia is waging a new cold war in the Baltic region, breaching international law and the conventions that govern civilized behavior among nations. The Kremlin provokes and intimidates its neighbors with aggressive espionage, corruption of political elites, propaganda onslaughts, cyberattacks, economic sanctions, coercive energy policies, surprise military exercises, and violations of airspace, territorial waters and even national borders, as […]
» Read moreNEWSLINK The Economist: Ukraine and Russia. Putin the uniter. The war has made most Ukrainians see Russians as enemies, not friends.
The longer the war drags on, the more entrenched opinion becomes. Olexander Scherba, a Ukrainian diplomat, eschewed the Maidan protests, calling himself “a Eurosceptic and Russophile” on his Facebook page in late 2013. “I was ready to forgive Russia a lot,” says Mr Scherba, now Ukraine’s ambassador to Austria. “But now it’s absolutely clear: they are an enemy.” Even many […]
» Read moreNEWSLINK Kyiv Post: SBU Chief Fired After Flap With Poroshenko
Ukraine’s Parliament on June 18 approved President Petro Poroshenko’s request to sack Valentyn Nalyvaichenko as head of the Security Service of Ukraine, amid growing recriminations over who is to blame for the government’s faltering drive against crime and corruption. https://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/sbu-chief-fired-after-flap-with-poroshenko-391460.html
» Read moreNEWSLINK Foreign Policy/John Hudson: The Undiplomatic Diplomat.
Russia hawks on Capitol Hill love Victoria Nuland, the State Department’s point person for Ukraine. Many Europeans can’t stand her. http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/06/18/the-undiplomatic-diplomat/
» Read moreNEWSLINK CNBC: Russia faces ‘serious challenges’ and must push reforms
Russia faces a series of challenges and should use its current period of economic crisis as an opportunity to make far-reaching reforms, Russia’s political and business leaders have told CNBC at a panel at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).
» Read moreNEWSLINK Reuters: Putin says Russia is weathering sanctions storm
Investment in Russia has slowed to a trickle, capital flight has risen and the economy has been sliding into recession since oil prices tumbled last year and the West imposed economic sanctions on Moscow over the Ukraine crisis.
» Read moreNEWSLINK Kyiv Post editorial: New arms race; The last time that the West got into an arms race with the Kremlin, the Soviet Union collapsed
So when we hear threats from Russian President Vladimir Putin that he will respond to the West’s improved NATO defenses on Russia’s border, our response is: Bring it on, peewee Stalin!
» Read moreNEWSLINK The National Interest/Rajan Menon: Newsflash, America: Ukraine Cannot Afford a War with Russia
Arming Ukraine would only fan the flames of tension between the West and Russia, leading the United States into a conflict it doesn’t, and shouldn’t, want.
» Read moreNEWSLINK Wall Street Journal: Russia’s Struggling Economy Clouds St. Petersburg Economic Forum. Corporate executives head to President Vladimir’s Putin hometown for annual event
NEWSLINK The Guardian: Moscow 25 years on: do I still recognise the city?
It is 25 years since this correspondent first set foot in Europe’s largest city. In those days, the air was thick with cheap gasoline, cars were all Zhigulis (Ladas) and ZiLs – or else dodgy, paperless German saloons driven by men with thick necks and leather jackets. A chic lunch was a kebab at the Baku restaurant on Gorky street; […]
» Read moreNEWSLINK Foreign Affairs/Charles King: The Decline of International Studies; Why Flying Blind Is Dangerous
The end of the United States’ premier federal program for Russian studies saved taxpayers only $3.3 million—the cost of two Tomahawk cruise missiles or about half a day’s sea time for an aircraft carrier strike group. The development was part of a broader trend: the scaling back of a long-term national commitment to education and research focused on international affairs. […]
» Read moreNEWSLINK AP: In east Ukraine psychiatric ward, war deepens mental wounds
Whenever the bombs fell, the men and women in the psychiatric ward would huddle in terror around fellow patient Valentina Izotova, a stout, maternal-looking woman, and she would read to them from her favorite book. They hardly understood a word, but her voice soothed them.
» Read moreNEWSLINK International New York Times/Fiona Hill, Steven Pifer: Putin’s Risky Game of Chicken
Russian SU-24 fighter-bombers buzzed a U.S. Navy destroyer in international waters in the Black Sea late in May, just days after the Royal Air Force scrambled to intercept nuclear-capable Bear bombers near British airspace. These dangerous Russian games of chicken are now regular occurrences and come hard upon a Russian threat in March to aim nuclear missiles at Danish warships […]
» Read moreNEWSLINK New York Times/Bloomberg/Albert Hunt: Confronting Russia Holds Peril for U.S
Dealing with a bully that behaves worse when it senses a lack of resolve or a lack of respect is a delicate task.
» Read moreNEWSLINK Reuters/Matthew Rojansky, Thomas E. Graham, and Michael Kofman: Are Ukraine and the U.S. allies or not?
At this critical moment for the future of Ukrainian, European and U.S. interests in the region, the U.S.-Ukraine strategic partnership lacks both strategy and partnership.
» Read moreNEWSLINK New York Times: Defying Obama, Many in Congress Press to Arm Ukraine
With the peace process stalled and violence escalating in Ukraine, a bipartisan coalition in Congress is defying President Obama and European allies by pressing the administration to provide weapons to the embattled nation http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/12/world/europe/defying-obama-many-in-congress-press-to-arm-ukraine.html
» Read moreNEWSLINK The Guardian: Moscow’s suburbs may look monolithic, but the stories they tell are not
At the end of the 1950s, the Soviet Union began the largest experiment in industrialised housing in history. Owen Hatherley visits three of Moscow’s resulting mikrorayons, where the majority of Muscovites still live today
» Read moreNEWSLINK New York Times: Despite Tensions, U.S. Company Officials Attend Russian Economic Forum
The published forum program listed as attending Jim Rogers, chairman of the Miami financial company Beeland Interests; John Wories, president of Amsted Rail; and Jacob Frenkel, chairman of J. P. Morgan Chase International. David Bonderman, a founder of TPG capital, a private equity investor with shares in a grocery store chain here, also reportedly planned to attend. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/19/business/international/despite-tensions-us-company-officials-attend-russian-economic-forum.html?_r=0
» Read moreNEWSLINK Time/Bill Bradley: Five Steps for Peace in Ukraine
In Ukraine, lives continue to be lost, families are split, property is destroyed, the economy is decimated, ethnic divisions proliferate, and political unity remains non-existent. The human tragedy grows every day. The U.S., Europe, and Russia seem deadlocked, unable to understand the other’s point of view.
» Read moreNEWSLINK Ukrainian PM Blasts Separatists: ‘We Will Never Talk to Terrorists’
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk rejected criticisms from Russia on Wednesday that the embattled government in Kiev is failing to work toward reconciliation with separatist leaders in Donetsk and Luhansk.
» Read moreNEWSLINK Interfax-Ukraine: Gazprom: gas transit through Ukraine to end after 2019, come what may
Gazprom has no plans to continue using Ukraine as a transit country for gas exports after 2019, Deputy CEO Alexander Medvedev told journalists. “When the transit contract with Ukraine expires, there will be no prolongation, no conclusion of a new transit agreement under any circumstances. In light of the economic, commercial, technological, investment and political risks for gas transit, there […]
» Read moreNEWSLINK Reuters: Russia ramps up motor fuel sales to Ukraine, regardless of conflict
Russian companies, spurred by healthy profits, have sharply raised sales of vital motor fuel to Ukraine this year, while at the same time also supplying the area of the country held by pro-Moscow separatists.
» Read moreNEWSLINK Christian Science Monitor: NATO and Russia aren’t talking to each other. Cold war lessons forgotten?
Several times during the cold war, miscommunication almost led to nuclear conflict. Now, amid tensions over Ukraine, Russia and the West are showing a new failure to communicate.
» Read moreNEWSLINK The National Interest: Russia’s Deceptively Weak Military
“Despite the technical improvements and selective increase in operational capability, the Russian military remains a shadow of its perceived capability.”
» Read moreNEWSLINK The Guardian: Is the ‘Moscow experiment’ over?
The plan was to create a new type of city that answered the needs of Moscow’s creative middle classes. But did the exit of Sergei Kapkov, the culture minister who ushered in these changes, also signal the end of the city’s urban revival?
» Read moreNEWSLINK Wall Street Journal/Anne Applebaum: Ukraine’s Most Hopeful City: Lviv; In Lviv, the conflict with Russia can feel far away
Lviv has the ambience of Prague or Krakow, but without the prices or the crowds. Ukrainians can’t go to Crimea anymore, and visas are tough. But in Lviv, you can eat a good meal for a few euros, go to the opera or just sit in the parks and watch people for free. Click here for “Ukraine’s Most Hopeful […]
» Read moreNEWSLINK Kyiv Post: Poroshenko: Ukraine will retake Crimea, strengthen its border with Russia
… Petro Poroshenko put Crimea front and center at his third news conference as president today on June 5.
» Read moreNEWSLINK Christian Science Monitor: War flares in Ukraine. Who’s lighting the fuse?
President Poroshenko claimed today that Russian forces are set to invade Ukraine. But the spark that ignites new fighting may actually prove to be domestic.
» Read moreNEWSLINK Kyiv Post: Poroshenko warns of ‘full-scale’ war, prods to speed up reforms
Ukraine will stick to the Minsk II peace agreement, even though Russia might launch a “full-scale” invasion in the eastern Donbas, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said during an address to Parliament on June 4 almost a year after he came to power. He was inaugurated on June
» Read moreNEWSLINK Wall Street Journal: U.S. Business Consultant Jailed in Russia
Scott Blacklin has been held in Nizhny Novgorod since May 20, for alleged visa violation
» Read moreNEWSLINK Reuters: Economy weighs on Russia World Cup plans amid FIFA scandal
President Vladimir Putin is still likely to host the World Cup in 2018 despite an FBI investigation into Russia’s winning bid but his hopes of staging a tournament that impresses his critics are fading.
» Read moreNEWSLINK Reuters: Russia’s Gazprom presses on with Turkey pipeline despite questions
Russia’s Gazprom plans to start building a pipeline to Turkey this month to get gas to Europe without going through Ukraine, company sources said, although it has no firm agreement with Ankara and faces opposition from the European Union.
» Read moreNEWSLINK Reuters: Sink or sell? Russia spat leaves France with warships to spare
Tensions between the West and Russia over Ukraine have blocked a deal in which Moscow was to buy the ships, leaving Paris trying to negotiate a face-saving compromise and work out CAwhat to do with two unwanted warships.
» Read moreNEWSLINK New York Times: Vladimir Putin Hides the Truth
Last week Mr. Putin added a new and especially cruel twist to his formula of deception by decreeing that the deaths or wounds of Russian soldiers in “special operations” can be classified as military secrets, even in peacetime. In the past, the list of state secrets applied only to personnel losses in wartime.
» Read moreNEWSLINK Deutsche Welle: Despite distance, war takes toll on western Ukraine
In Ukraine’s west, long a bastion of pro-European sentiment, the war and economic crisis are shaking faith in the country’s leadership
» Read moreNEWSLINK New York Times: Fighting in Ukraine Eases, but Abuses Continue on Both Sides, U.N. Says
Fighting in eastern Ukraine has eased recently, but at least 6,417 people have died in the conflict and abuses that may amount to war crimes continue to be committed by both sides, the United Nations said Monday.
» Read moreNEWSLINK Financial Times/Thomas Graham: Europe’s problem is with Russia, not Putin. Moscow is not a rising revolutionary force but one seeking to restore power
NEWSLINK AFP: Russian bear will roar once more, says World Bank. Russia economy forecast to grow by 0.7pc next year, reversing negative growth forecast
Russia economy forecast to grow by 0.7pc next year, reversing negative growth forecast The World Bank is seeing some improvement in Russia’s battered economy, predicting it would shrink by 2.7pc this year and return to growth of 0.7pc in 2016.
» Read more[PDF] TRANSCRIPT: BROOKINGS HOSTS VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN FOR REMARKS ON THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE CONFLICT
… You know, it’s now been 14 months since Russian aggression in Ukraine last spring. And it has literally transformed the landscape of European security. Everybody wants this conflict to end as soon as possible. The question is on whose terms and how will it end. Because it’s not a remote conflict between neighbors arguing over who gets what, what’s happening […]
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