West Mistakenly Thinks Russia in Terminal Decline While Moscow Elites Even More Wrongly Believe They can Restore Russia’s Superpower Status, Pastukhov Says

European Portion of Commonwealth of Independent States

(Paul Goble – Window On Eurasia – Staunton, Mar. 11, 2024) Many of the mistakes Western elites have made about Russia and that Moscow elites have made about their own county arise from misconceptions each has about Russia’s future, Vladimir Pastukhov says. The West has mistakenly assumed Russia is in terminal decline while Moscow elites think they can restore the […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Forever Putinism: The Russian Autocrat’s Answer to the Problem of Succession” – Foreign Affairs

Aerial View of Kremlin and Environs

“… Early-stage Putinism was marked by … public complacency and indifference. Complacency flourished when the Russian economy expanded between 2000 and 2008 …  enabling the rise of a Russian middle class. Indifference, which the Kremlin inculcated in part by discouraging public participation in politics, assisted in the regime’s creeping authoritarianism. One need not love Putin; it was sufficient to merely […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Russia Is Burning Up Its Future” – Foreign Affairs

Vladimir Putin file photo, adapted from screenshot of video at shareamerica.gov

“How Putin’s Pursuit of Power Has Hollowed Out the Country and Its People” “… Russia is neither stable nor normal. The [Russian] presidential election brings to maturity the late-stage Putinism that began with the [2020] constitutional referendum … when Putin’s potential mandate was extended until 2036. … Putin has made clear that Russia is fighting a permanent background war with […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “America’s New Twilight Struggle With Russia; To Prevail, Washington Must Revive Containment” – Foreign Affairs: Max Bergmann, Michael Kimmage, Jeffrey Mankoff, Maria Snegovaya

File Photo of Kremlin Tower, St. Basil's, Red Square at Night

“… [C]containment should prioritize defending Russia’s threatened neighbors, especially those that do not have a clear and immediate path to NATO membership. Apart from Ukraine, Russia’s most vulnerable neighbors include [non-NATO] Armenia, Georgia, and Moldova …. The United States should offer … training and weapons … [and] bolster [their] resilience against Russian gray-zone threats, ranging from cyberattacks to election meddling. […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Kremlin propagandists attack director of new ‘Master and Margarita’ film captivating Russians” – The Telegraph (UK)

File Photo of Reel of Film

“Adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s anti-totalitarian Soviet novel wins rave reviews but pro-Russia activists want Michael Lockshin probed” “A new film adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s anti-totalitarian Soviet novel Master and Margarita is winning rave reviews in Russia but irritating the Kremlin and its supporters. Colleagues of Michael Lockshin, the American-Russian director of the Russian-language film, have … accused Kremlin trolls of […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “How Putin’s Obsession With History Led Him to Start a War” – WSJ

Map of Ukraine, Including Crimea, and Neighbors, Including Russia

“Long-winded, often factually erroneous arguments back his conviction that Russia has a historic right to Ukraine” “[In his] two-hour interview with Tucker Carlson … Putin recounted events of centuries past and trotted out 17th-century documents … expounding on deeply held views about the past, many widely disputed by historians, that have driven him to launch the continent’s bloodiest conflict since […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Putin Seeks Revenge on a World Order He Once Wanted to Join” – Bloomberg

Vladimir Putin file photo, adapted from screenshot of video at shareamerica.gov

“The KGB agent turned warlord president has shaped Russia with resentment and force. As Donald Trump threatens to abandon NATO allies if he returns to the White House, Putin’s poised to take advantage.” “… Putin is attempting to strike his own decisive blow against the U.S. and Europe to reshape [the] global order to Russia’s advantage … backed by military […]

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De-Centering Russia

Bookcase file photo, adapted from image at nlm.nih.gov

Subject: De-centering Russia Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2024 From: Karen Hewitt <karen.hewitt@conted.ox.ac.uk> My comments on the lecture by Juliet Johnson on ‘De-centering Russia’ aseees.org/news-events/aseees-blog-feed/2023-presidents-address-de-centering-russia-challenges-and I am not a specialist in Slavic Studies. My academic work has been in English Literature, and my focus in Russia has been on introducing English Literature, especially contemporary literature, to some seventy university departments across […]

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RIP: Roger Kanet

Lit Candle with Reflection and Dark Background

Subject: RIP: Roger Kanet Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2024 From: Boyle, Francis A <fboyle@illinois.edu> When I joined the Law Faculty here in August of 1978, knowing of my extensive studies of Russia, the Soviet Union and the Soviet Legal System at Harvard, Roger asked me to become an associate of our then Russian Research Center. So I spent a lot […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “What is Russia’s role in the Israel-Gaza crisis?” – Fiona Hill, Kevin Huggard

Gaza Strip map adapted from cia.gov image

“Is the Israel-Hamas war a distraction from Ukraine?” “… FIONA HILL: There’s a lot of concern … that there will be less emphasis on Ukraine [and not just for the United States] …. European countries … are being roiled by … Gaza …. described recently by [a] foreign minister … as a ‘black hole … sucking everything else into it’ […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “A century after Lenin’s death, the USSR’s founder seems to be an afterthought in modern Russia” – AP

File Photo of Vladimir Lenin at Desk adapted from nps.gov image

“Take a look at Vladimir Lenin’s legacy, 100 years after the first Soviet Union leader’s death shocked Russia.” “… A century later, the once-omnipresent image of Vladimir Lenin is largely an afterthought in modern Russia …. The Red Square mausoleum where his embalmed corpse lies in an open sarcophagus is no longer a near-mandatory pilgrimage but a site of macabre […]

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Cursed land: About a radically pessimistic scenario for Russia and the whole world

Map of Russia and Russian Flag adapted from images at state.gov

(Kennan Institute – wilsoncenter.org/program/kennan-institute – Jan. 22, 2024) Egor Mostovshchikov is a reporter, editor, publisher, director, screenwriter, and producer. He is the founder of the self-published media outlet Batenka, da vy transformer. Machine translation: wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/proklyataya-zemlya Peter Zeichan is exceptionally selfless: in his works, he meticulously destroys everything that a person who grew up in Russia knows about his country. A […]

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Zelensky Signs Decree on Russian Territories ‘Historically Inhabited’ by Ukrainians

Map of Commonwealth of Independent States, European Portion

(Moscow Times – Jan. 22, 2024) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday signed a decree calling for the preservation of Ukrainian national identity in Russia. The decree, announced to coincide with Ukraine’s Day of Unity on Jan. 22, states that “Russia has systematically destroyed national identity and oppressed Ukrainians in the lands historically inhabited by them,” namely the “modern Krasnodar, […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “What To Read To Understand Russia” – The Atlantic/ Anastasia Edel

Bookcase file photo, adapted from image at nlm.nih.gov

” …[A]uthors such as Tolstoy and Dostoevsky still rule the canon of Russian literature. But … Anastasia Edel, … author of Russia: Putin’s Playground: Empire, Revolution, and the New Tsar, … suggests … readers who want to comprehend Putin’s Russia look to Chevengur, an epic account of the Russian Revolution, written in 1929 by … Soviet writer Andrey Platonov. His […]

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Russia Analytical Report, Nov. 27-Dec. 4, 2023

File Photo of Red Square, Kremlin, Environs, adapted from image at state.gov

(Russia Matters – russiamatters.org) Miscalculations and divisions marked the efforts of Kyiv and its allies to plan the Ukrainian military’s summer offensive, according to the results of extensive research by Washington Post staff into the lead-up to the largely unsuccessful operation. “The year began with Western resolve at its peak, Ukrainian forces highly confident and … Zelensky predicting a decisive […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Many Ukrainians see Putin’s invasion as a continuation of Stalin’s genocide” – Atlantic Council/ Kristina Hook

Map of Ukraine, Including Crimea, and Neighbors, Including Russia

“… [F]or most Ukrainians, the main factor fueling their determination … is the sense that Russia’s genocidal objectives leave them … no choice …. Either Ukrainians defend themselves, or Ukraine … will cease to exist. Examples of the Russian military’s genocidal conduct … and the Kremlin’s genocidal intent continue to mount. … [H]uman rights investigators have released new evidence accusing […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Biden compares Russia’s actions in Ukraine to Holodomor famine” – Politico

Wheat in Field, adapted from image at usda.gov

“‘Putin is hurting the world’s most vulnerable communities, for Russia’s profit,’ Biden said. “The White House on Saturday reaffirmed its commitment to Ukraine in a statement marking the anniversary of Holodomor, drawing parallels between Russia’s offensive and the 1930s Soviet-imposed famine that killed millions of Ukrainians. ‘Today, Ukraine’s agricultural infrastructure is once more being deliberately targeted — this time by […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Putin Has Staked Russia’s Resources on Victory in Ukraine. Can the West Match Him?” – WSJ

Map of Ukraine, Including Crimea, and Neighbors, Including Russia

“Kremlin leader seeks to turn advantage in manpower and munitions into battlefield progress, while Western will and assistance for Kyiv waver “… [P]olitical paralysis in the U.S. and Europe … threaten[] … [Ukrainian] … [access to[] arms and money … [T]he Russian army’s limitations … suggest it is more likely to grind out [just] small gains …. The Ukrainian army […]

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NEW BOOK: Richard Sakwa, “The Lost Peace: How The West Failed to Prevent a Second Cold War”

Bookcase file photo, adapted from image at nlm.nih.gov

New book: Richard Sakwa, The Lost Peace: How The West Failed to Prevent a Second Cold War (New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 2023). Professor Emeritus of Politics School of Politics and International Relations Keynes College, Division of Human and Social Sciences University of Kent Introduction PART I: FROM COLD WAR TO COLD WAR The promise of peace The […]

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RUSSIALINK: “As Russia’s Permafrost Thaws, Ancient Pathogens Risk Re-Awakening” – Moscow Times

Anthrax Microscopic Image, adapted from cdc.gov image

(Moscow Times – Nov. 7, 2023) Ancient pathogens that have been preserved in northern Russia’s permafrost for millennia could reawaken as global temperatures rise, scientists warn, potentially putting humanity at risk of never-before-seen diseases. Jean-Michel Claverie, a virologist and emeritus professor at the Aix-Marseille University School of Medicine, is one of the few scientists worldwide who has studied “zombie viruses” […]

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Thomas Graham on Why and How America Should Start Getting Russia Right

File Photo of Red Square, Kremlin, Environs, adapted from image at state.gov

(Russia Matters – russiamatters.org – Simon Saradzhyan – Oct. 19, 2023) Simon Saradzhyan is the founding director of Russia Matters. BOOK REVIEW “Getting Russia Right” By Thomas Graham Polity, October 2023 Multiple books have been published since Vladimir Putin’s re-invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 that explore the sources of Russia’s aggressive conduct. In fact, some of these books were […]

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Yeltsin’s Use of Force against Parliament in October 1993 Set Stage for Rise of Putin, Gromov Says

Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin

(Paul Goble – Window On Eurasia – Staunton, Oct. 4, 2023) With each passing year, it becomes more obvious that the events of the end of September and beginning of October 1993 when Boris Yeltsin used force against the Russian parliament and essentially solidified presidentialist rule in Russia were “one of the key turning points in present-day Russia,” Andrey Gromov […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “The Ideology of Putinism: Is It Sustainable?” – CSIS

Kremlin and River

“… Borrowing heavily from czarist and Soviet themes, as well as other intellectual sources like the twentieth-century radical right, Putinism elevates an idea of imperial-nationalist statism amplified by Russian greatness, exceptionalism, and historical struggle against the West. Statism, a key pillar of Putin’s ideology, includes deference to a strong, stable state, allowing Russians to be Russians; such statism is based […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “For nearly a quarter century, an AP correspondent watched the Putin era unfold in Russia” – AP/ Jim Heintz

Vladimir Putin file photo, adapted from screenshot of video at shareamerica.gov

“… Russia initially cultivated lively debate and flamboyantly welcomed the world, then gradually choked off freedoms and closed itself off while its citizens fled and uneasy foreigners felt compelled to leave. In 2022, it launched a war against Ukraine that sharply intensified the growing isolation. I spent 24 years … as a Moscow-based [AP] correspondent … cheered by Russia’s steps […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Ukraine’s Appeals to Europe Can Alienate Others; Rhetoric about ‘European civilization’ clashes with anti-colonial ideals.” – Foreign Policy

Europe Map

“… Ukrainian pleas for military aid, financial support, and eventual membership in the European Union and NATO have often used the language of Europe and of European civilization. … Zelensky stressed that Ukraine is fighting for the ‘European way of life,’ founded upon ‘rules, values, equality, and fairness.’ This is a powerful idea for Ukrainians, but one that can be […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Putin conquers Russia’s history textbooks” – Washington Post

Bookcase file photo, adapted from image at nlm.nih.gov

“What will Russia look like after … Putin’s ruinous war against Ukraine? [] Putin has used the war to drive the Russian state and society deeper into dictatorship. This legacy will be long-lasting, and now [] Putin is rewriting high school history textbooks to convey his many lies and fabrications to a new generation. Schoolbooks have long been a battleground […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “In Defeating the August 1991 Coup, Russians Won — and Then Lost — Democracy; Will young people continue fighting for freedom?” – The Nation

File Photo of Kremlin Tower, St. Basil's, Red Square at Night

“… Of course, none of us really understood what democracy was at that time, since generations of Soviet people did not have the experience. I didn’t understand that we have to fight for freedom every day — excellent laws and even parliamentary decisions are not enough. I did not suspect that under capitalism, which then seemed to many an ideal […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Why Putin’s Russia cannot accept its borders” – Atlantic Council

European Portion of Commonwealth of Independent States

“… [I]t is important to recognize that Russia was never a state in the common usage of the term. Unlike … modern Turk[ey] … or Great Britain, which acquired and lost an empire, Russia never had an identity separate from empire. As British historian Geoffrey Hosking observed, ‘Britain had an empire, but Russia was an empire.’ The … narrative of […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Putin’s Forever War” – New York Times

Map of Russia and Russian Flag adapted from images at state.gov

“… Putin wants to lead Russians into a civilizational conflict with the West far larger than Ukraine. Will they follow him?” “I spent a month in Russia … searching for clues that might explain its nationalist lurch into an unprovoked war and its [current] mood …. The war … [reportedly] has … taken 200,000 lives since Feb. 24, 2022, roughly […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Why Ukrainians see no sense in negotiating with Russia now” – Politico EU

European Portion of Commonwealth of Independent States

“According to the country’s historical experience, if the Russian state exists in its current form, it will not engage in sincere negotiations, or sign a peace deal in good faith.” “… Russia’s current war against Ukraine can’t easily end via negotiations. It falls into a long historical pattern … part of a larger pathology making stable peace unfeasible … [as […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “‘The Ruble’ Review: Imperial Tender” – WSJ

File photo of Russian paper currency, adapted from image at csce.house.gov

“Throughout its history, the Russian currency has been a symbol and an instrument of centralized and autocratic power.” “When reading Ekaterina Pravilova’s original, fascinating and meticulously researched ‘The Ruble’ it is a good idea to keep in mind its subtitle: ‘A Political History.’ For [her] multi-layered account of the evolution of the paper ruble from … the mid-18th century until […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “‘Wonder Confronts Certainty’ Review: Lessons From Russian Literature” – WSJ

Bookcase file photo, adapted from image at nlm.nih.gov

“The writings of Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dostoyevsky and others are littered with clues for understanding the 21st-century world.” “Books of cultural criticism seldom shed a piercing light on headline events. However, readers of ‘Wonder Confronts Certainty,’ Gary Saul Morson’s masterly panorama of classic Russian literature and its hinterland of ideas, will find their understanding of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s recent botched rebellion against […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Deepening Poverty Grips Ukraine, Spurs Resilience” – WSJ

Map of Ukraine, Including Crimea, and Neighbors, Including Russia

“Russia’s invasion has brought about the most severe economic hardship since the end of the Soviet Union.” “… Russia’s invasion has pushed the number of Ukrainians living in poverty to nearly a quarter of the population, … the most acute economic hardship the country has experienced since independence in 1991. … One-fifth of the country is now reliant on humanitarian […]

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The Russian Idea Revisited

File Photo of Red Square, Kremlin, Environs, adapted from image at state.gov

(Kennan Institute – wilsoncenter.org/program/kennan-institute – William E. Pomeranz – June 6, 2023) William Pomeranz is the Director of the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute, Some years after the Soviet Union’s collapse, President Boris Yeltsin initiated a national search for a new Russian idea. The past was too raw and controversial, however, to reach any consensus on or reconciliation as to what […]

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Russian History: Call For Papers: Reinterpreting Russian History after Feb. 24, 2022

European Portion of Commonwealth of Independent States

Discussion published by Lawrence Langer on Sunday, June 4, 2023 Russian History invites essays on the implications of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine for Russian history. Articles should address a significant problem in the study of Russian History, the state of the field and the historiography concerning this issue, and the significance of the topic for an understanding of Russian history […]

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Kissinger on Russia: Insights and Recommendations

Henry Kissinger File Photo, with Military Officer and Others in Background; adapted from image at defense.gov,; original image was DoD photo by Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Adrian Cadiz

(Russia Matters – russiamatters.org – Henry Kissinger and RM Staff – May 26, 2023) This evolving compilation of observations and policy ideas about Russia by Henry Kissinger, an eminent U.S. statesman who turns 100 on May 27, 2023, was the first in Russia Matters’ “Competing Views” series, where we share prominent American thinkers’ alternative takes on U.S.-Russian relations, Russia itself […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Notes of a Russian Visitor; The director of PEN Moscow is worried about Russophobia” – The Nation/ Nadezhda Azhgikhina

Stylized Russian and U.S. Flags, 200, 1807-2007

“… [I]n the spring of 1991, I first came to New York, to attend the Glasnost in Two Cultures conference of women writers in Russia and North America. … my first real trip abroad. Going to America at the time was like going to the moon for Soviet people. … Thirty years ago, Russians and Americans discovered each other. … […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Latvia battles to curb Russian media influence” – DW

Map of Baltics and Environs, Including Kaliningrad

“Latvia is fighting to counter the spread of Moscow’s disinformation. Given its large Russian-speaking community, this is a tough task.” “… Latvia gained its long-awaited independence in the 1990s … then became a member of the [EU] and NATO. But … the country’s Soviet past still has a potent impact …. Even before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine … Latvian […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: Russian-speaking Ukrainians want to shed ‘language of the oppressor'” – The Guardian (UK)

Map of Ukraine, Including Crimea, and Neighbors, Including Russia

“Kharkiv on country’s eastern border has long had Russian-speaking majority but things are changing fast” “… A period of official ‘Ukrainianisation’ followed the October revolution of 1917, with a lively avant garde, Ukrainian-language literary scene springing up in Kharkiv. But from 1933 onwards the novelists, poets, journalists and playwrights of this brief modernist flowering were brutally suppressed. Hundreds of writers […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Putin’s War on Young People; Almost unnoticed, a generation of Russians has come of age during his 23 years in power.” – Foreign Policy/ Lucian Kim

Tower and Building Inside Kremlin

“… Putin’s war against Ukraine is a war against youth … and not only … [with regard to] the deaths of tens of thousands of young Ukrainians and Russians. To the clique of aging former KGB officers who … usurped power in Russia, young people — if … not cogs in the Kremlin’s war machine — are a threat simply […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “‘By ignoring the Ukrainian identity of the painters, the Musée d’Orsay is made into an instrument of Russian propaganda” – Le Monde

European Portion of Commonwealth of Independent States

“There are numerous examples of French museums that have participated in the propagation of Russian imperialist narratives through art, according to the academic Olena Havrylchyk, who calls for ‘the decolonization of Ukrainian art.” “On February 10, 2023, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City recognized Arkhip Kuindzhi and Ilya Repin as Ukrainian painters, whereas they were previously presented […]

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Golstein’s Ode To Haxthausen

Kremlin and River

Subject: Golstein’s ode to Haxthausen Date: Thu, 9 Mar 2023 From: Parthe, Kathleen <kparthe@ur.rochester.edu> Professor Golstein’s new attack on negative views of Russia (in the March 9 JRL) uses Baron von Haxthausen as his latest prop. Haxthausen went to Russia with the goal of studying communal institutions, and found them in abundance in the pre-emancipation countryside. From that, Haxthausen generalized […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Putin retreats deeper into his labyrinth” – Washington Post

Vladimir Putin file photo, adapted from screenshot of video at shareamerica.gov

“More than a year into the war he launched … Putin is confronted with failure. Over months of offensives, the Russian war machine faltered badly, failing to capture Kyiv and buckling on other fronts …. What Putin spuriously billed as a mission to ‘denazify’ Russia’s neighbor has turned into … grinding, attritional battles, punctuated by reports of Russian atrocities and […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Kennan: A Life between Worlds review” – Irish Times

George F. Kennan historic file photo, adapted from image at loc.gov

“Kennan: A Life between Worlds Frank Costigliola Princeton University Press 624pp £32” “… An obscure diplomat in 1940s Moscow, George F. Kennan (1904-2005) found fame as the architect of ‘containment’ – America’s global struggle to defend the ‘free world’ from Soviet expansionism and communist subversion. Kennan’s policy prescriptions went public when he was outed as the anonymous author of a […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “How to End Putin’s Forever War: An armistice like the one that ended fighting in the Korean War is a viable alternative to stalemate and attrition in Ukraine” – The Nation

Map of Ukraine, Including Crimea, and Neighbors, Including Russia

“… Last fall, [Joint Chiefs Chairman] Gen. Mark Milley … estimated … both Russia and Ukraine have lost roughly 100,000 soldiers, with an additional 40,000 civilians killed. …. Putin, a vicious autocrat, will not be deterred by further bloodshed. … [additionally] replenish[ing] … soldiers lost in the war by enlisting mercenaries through the Wagner Group, a private military with close […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Russia Exiled Them. Big Mistake. Exiles from Putin’s Russia have a powerful role to play in what comes next in their country. It’s happened before.” – Politico/ Leon Aron

File Photo of Kremlin Tower, St. Basil's, Red Square at Night

“When it comes to regime change, there’s an important relationship between regime opponents inside the country, and exiles outside the country. This has played out over and over again in history, particularly in Russia. This dynamic will be important to whatever happens in Russia in the wake of … Putin’s ill-conceived invasion of Ukraine. … Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Kennan’s Warning on Ukraine; Ambition, Insecurity, and the Perils of Independence” – Foreign Affairs/ Frank Costigliola

George F. Kennan historic file photo, adapted from image at loc.gov

“George Kennan … is famous for forecasting the collapse of the Soviet Union. Less well known is his [1948] warning … that no Russian government would ever accept Ukrainian independence. Foreseeing a deadlocked struggle between Moscow and Kyiv, Kennan made detailed suggestions at the time about how Washington should deal with a conflict that pitted an independent Ukraine against Russia. […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “Ukrainians Target Pushkin in Drive Against Russian Influence; Ukraine is pulling down monuments to Russian writers, while Russia is reinstalling Lenin statues in occupied towns.” – WSJ

File Photo of Lenin and Stalin, Seated, adapted from image at loc.gov

“… Ukrainians are taking aim at the symbols of Russian cultural dominance that Moscow spread during centuries of rule over territory that now makes up much of Ukraine. The goal … [reportedly] is to counter centuries of Russian propaganda, embraced by many Russians, that Ukrainians and Russians are one people, with the same history and heroes. … Putin has promoted […]

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JRL NEWSWATCH: “What 70 Years of War Can Tell Us About the Russia-Ukraine Conflict” – New York Times

European Portion of Commonwealth of Independent States

“Despite some postmodern features, the fighting resembles a type of conflict from decades past: wars fought between nations in which one does not conquer the other outright.” “Any Russian invasion of Ukraine was long expected to … [be] defined by 21st-century weapons like media manipulation, battlefield-clouding disinformation, cyberattacks, false flag operations and unmarked fighters. Such elements have [been] featured …. […]

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Ruslan Khasbulatov, Whose 1993 Showdown With Yeltsin Led To Deadly Parliament Shelling, Dies Aged 80

Map of Russia and Russian Flag adapted from images at state.gov

(Article text Copyright © 2022 RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036. – rferl.org – January 4, 2023 – article text also appeared at rferl.org/a/russia-khasbulatov-soviet-chairman-dies/32207078.html) Ruslan Khasbulatov, a Russian politician whose dramatic standoff with then-President Boris Yeltsin in 1993 led to the deadly shelling of the parliament […]

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