Interfax: Shooting, explosions cease in Donetsk, utility workers restore gas, water supplies – city council

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KYIV. Aug 6 (Interfax) – The situation in Donetsk remained tense at 1 p.m. local time (2 p.m. Moscow time) on Wednesday but no more shooting can be heard and critical public services are running as usual, the Donetsk city council said. Specialists from Donetskgorgaz are repairing gas pipelines “damaged as a result of artillery fire in the Petrovsky and […]

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Interfax: Luhansk is without power, water supply, communications – city council

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KYIV. Aug 6 (Interfax) – The situation in Luhansk remained critical as of the morning of August 6 as the city remained without power, water supply and landline and mobile communications, the press service for the Luhansk city council has reported. According to the press service, shooting continued in the city in the early hours of Wednesday. The majority of […]

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Moscow Times: Twitter Users Mock West With #BlamePutin Hashtag

File Photo of Vladimir Putin Sitting at Desk

(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, […]

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RIA Novosti: Russia believes West will continue sanctions – top diplomat

Truck at Russian Border Crossing

(RIA Novosti – Moscow, August 4, 2014) Moscow believes that Western countries will continue to exert pressure on Russia by means of sanctions, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has said. “I think, there is a real threat which one should not underestimate: that the itch of sanctions won’t end with this [i.e. the current sanctions]. They will scratch it […]

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RIA Novosti: Poll Shows Happiness Index in Russia Remains High

Map of Russia

MOSCOW, August 5 (RIA Novosti) – Happiness index in Russia has remained at 78 points for the past three months despite the increasing sanctions burden, according to the country’s opinion research agency VCIOM. A public opinion poll conducted by the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) showed Tuesday that the “satisfaction with life” index has remained unchanged at 78 points […]

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Interfax: Russians give economic situation good assessment – VTsIOM

File Photo of Cash, Coins, Line Graph

MOSCOW. Aug 5 (Interfax) – The figures of social wellbeing of Russian citizens are at record levels for the third month in a row and the index of assessing economic situations reached historical maximums in July, the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) said on Tuesday. Sociologists calculated the index of Russian satisfaction with life, which rose to a record […]

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RIA Novosti: Ukrainian Military Getting Ready to Storm Donetsk, Luhansk – Kiev Official

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KIEV, August 5 (RIA Novosti) – Ukrainian troops have reached the eastern cities of Donetsk and Luhansk and are getting ready to take them by storm, Ukraine Security Council representative Andriy Lysenko said Tuesday. “The main anti-terrorist operation forces, including territorial battalions, have reached these areas [outskirts of Donetsk and Luhansk]. It doesn’t mean that any storm has already started. […]

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RUSSIA & UKRAINE: JRL 2014-#169 contents with links :: Tuesday 5 August 2014

St. Basil's file photo

[check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List JRL 2014-#169 :: Tuesday 5 August 2014 E-Mail: davidjohnson@starpower.net A project of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George  Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs: www.ieres.org JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist  JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php  1. RIA Novosti: NATO Claims Russia Gathered 20,000 Troops on Ukraine […]

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BNE: Ukraine update

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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Tim Ash, Standard Bank – August 5, 2014) On the front line in the Donbas both sides appear to be squaring up for the final push. Ukrainian forces have reportedly now encircled Donetsk, and all but encircled Luhansk, with the area now controlled by separatists shrinking by at least half since the latest offensive […]

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RIA Novosti: NATO Claims Russia Gathered 20,000 Troops on Ukraine Border

Map of Western CIS/FSU and European Environs

BRUSSELS, August 5 (RIA Novosti) – NATO Deputy Secretary-General Alexander Vershbow said Tuesday Russia had beefed up its troops along its border with Ukraine by some 20,000 soldiers. “Russia broke intl law w/ [with] no justification, invaded #Ukraine, backs separatists, now has ±20,000 troops on Ukraine’s E. border,” Vershbow wrote on his Twitter page. NATO has never looked for pretext […]

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No Palace Coup in Sight for Russia

Aerial View of Kremlin and Environs

(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 […]

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RUSSIA & UKRAINE: JRL 2014-#168 contents with links :: Monday 4 August 2014

St. Basil's file photo

… 4. Wall Street Journal: Conflict in East Ukraine Claims Civilian Lives in Rebel-Held Cities. Warfare Spreading into Rebel-Controlled Cities Risks Alienating Residents.
5. Reuters: Ukrainian city stocks up as a long siege looms. …

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The collapse of the Soviet Union: What was it — the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century or simply a major disaster?

File Photo of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin

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 […]

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AW: 2014-#166-Johnson’s Russia List [Adomeit’s first note][re: editorial policies, Putin, Soviet collapse, translation]

Aerial View of Kremlin and Environs

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 […]

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language, again [re: Putin and Soviet collapse, translation]

Vladimir Putin file photo

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 […]

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“Krupneyshaya katastrofa” translation

Aerial View of Kremlin and Environs

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 […]

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Debate over Putin quote on the Soviet collapse

File Photo of Vladimir Putin Sitting at Desk

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. […]

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Twelve percent of Russians want to leave Russia but only 4 percent consider it doable – poll

Map of Commonwealth of Independent States, European Portion

(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 […]

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How Nationalism Came to Dominate Russia’s Political Mainstream

Kremlin and Saint Basil's File Photo

(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 […]

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Sanctions on Technology Imports Leave Russia Playing Catch Up

Truck at Russian Border Crossing

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Panin – August 4, 2014) The impact of the EU’s latest and harshest sanctions on Russia will be felt most keenly in the country’s economic sectors that are largely dependent on state-of-the-art Western technology, ranging from the extraction of hydrocarbons to civil aircraft production, analysts said. The European Union late last week officially approved […]

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RIA Novosti: Russian Scientists Hope Western Sanctions Will Not Impede Space Projects

International Space Station file photo

MOSCOW, August 4 (RIA Novosti) – Russian scientists hope that the western sanctions, imposed on Russia over the crisis in Ukraine, will not impede the implementation of space projects, according to the director of the Lebedev Physical Institute Astro Space Center, Nikolai Kardashev. The scientist specifically hopes the sanctions will not affect the Millimetron space observatory mission – a high-sensitivity […]

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White House Transcript: Press Conference by the President [excerpt]

White House

The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release August 01, 2014 Press Conference by the President [excerpt] James S. Brady Press Briefing Room THE PRESIDENT: Look, this is a common theme that folks bring up. Apparently people have forgotten that America, as the most powerful country on Earth, still does not control everything around the world. And […]

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Ukraine Struggles To Find Strategy For Getting Back Crimea

Ukraine Map and Flag

(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Nataliya Kovalenko, Oleksiy Arunyan – August 02, 2014) Although the raging fighting and heated rhetoric in eastern Ukraine still command the headlines, the dispute between Kyiv and Moscow over Crimea simmers on and seems as intractable as ever. Russia annexed the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula in March, a move that Ukraine and most of the rest […]

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RIA Novosti: Ukrainian Defense Minister Says Army Close to Victory Over Militia in Eastern Regions

Map of Western CIS/FSU and European Environs

MOSCOW, August 4 (RIA Novosti) – Ukraine’s Defense Minister Valeriy Heletei claims that government troops are close to defeating independence militia in the southeast of the country, where Kiev has been conducting military operation since mid-April. “We will win very soon,” Heletei said in an interview with BBC. The minister added that he realizes that it will be a hard […]

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RUSSIA & UKRAINE: JRL 2014-#167 contents with links :: Friday 1 August 2014

St. Basil's file photo

… 29. Defense News: After White House Meeting, Lawmakers Say Obama Won’t Send Lethal Arms to Ukraine.
30. Washington Post: Fareed Zakaria, The Rise of Putinism.
31. Financial Times: US diplomat Victoria Nuland faces questions over strategy.
32. Politico.com: Ben Judah, The End of Vladimir Putin. Could the war in Ukraine bring down the Kremlin?
33. Anders Aslund: RE: 2014-#166-Johnson’s Russia List/Patrick Armstrong.
34. Patrick Armstrong: DEADLY QUOTATIONS PART 2. …

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Law Requiring Bloggers to Register as Mass Media Comes Into Force

File Photo of Little Girl at Computer Next to Globe

(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 […]

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Drugs Agency Proposes Giving Range of Social Benefits to Recovering Addicts

Russian Drug Den File Photo

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – August 1, 2014) Russia’s drug control agency has proposed providing free housing, food subsidies and home attendants to recovering addicts to help them in their rehabilitation, in a bill that has drawn sharp criticism from opponents who argue it would encourage drug use, a news report said. The bill of amendments to […]

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Moscow Times: How & Why Russia Forgot The Great War

Romanov Family Photo

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexey Eremenko – August 1, 2014) Russia lost 3 million people in World War I. But it also provided examples of explosive military strength and economic resilience that would make any nation proud. And yet, though the 100th anniversary of the war – which Russia joined on Aug. 1, 1914 – has revived some interest […]

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New Era Looms After Golden Age of ‘New Drama’

Mayakovsky Theater at Night, file photo; adapted from image from Creative Commons/wikimedia/Shuvaev

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – John Freedman – August 1, 2014) It has been an astonishing run. But doesn’t every run come to an end? The number of major playwrights that Russia put up over the last 15 to 18 years may make all other eras in the history of Russian drama pale by comparison. If this hasn’t been a […]

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[Patrick Armstrong: re: Putin, Soviet Geopolitical Disaster:] DEADLY QUOTATIONS PART 2

Vladimir Putin file photo

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 […]

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[Anders Åslund: re: Putin, Soviet Geopolitical Disaster:] RE: 2014-#166-Johnson’s Russia List/Patrick Armstrong

File Photo of Vladimir Putin Sitting at Desk

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 […]

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Russia Beyond the Headlines: Tefft calls for working with the Kremlin

Artist's Rendition of U.S. Embassy, Moscow, with the Russian Foreign Ministry in the Background

(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Nikolai Litovkin, RBTH – July 31, 2014) The man likely to be the next U.S. ambassador to Russia indicates that options for cooperation must remain open On July 29, the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations held an unannounced meeting in which its members unanimously approved John Tefft’s nomination as the next U.S. […]

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Cossack against cossack; The conflict in south-east Ukraine has divided the Cossacks – one is fighting for Russian unity, and the other for the Ukrainian national myth

Ukraine Map and Flag

(opendemocracy.net – Svetlana Bolotnikova – July 30, 2014) Svetlana Bolotnikova is a Russian journalist and correspondent for KavPolit, an online publication specialising in political developments in the Caucasus. Brother against brother The civil war in the south-east of Ukraine is in so many ways a repeat of the civil war in the region in the 1920s. But will there come […]

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Russia Beyond the Headlines: Ukraine, sanctions and ammo: Finding the angle to engage local audiences

Map of Western CIS/FSU and European Environs

(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Lara McCoy Roslof, RBTH – July 29. 2014) Lara McCoy Roslof, RBTH’s Executive Editor for the Western Hemisphere, writes about how seeing the news from a different social and geographical perspective reinforces the importance to news organizations of finding meaningful links between news stories and their target audience. North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina […]

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EU Arms Embargo: A Shot Across the Bow of Russia’s Defense Industry

EU Map

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Matthew Bodner – August 1, 2014) The West’s latest round of sanctions on Russia will not have much immediate impact on the county’s defense industry, but they do have the potential to strike a blow to Russia’s 23 trillion ruble ($646 billion) military modernization drive, analysts say. The European Union on Thursday formally banned the […]

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Moscow Times: UN Says ‘No Hard Evidence’ of Russia Supporting Ukraine Insurgency

UN Building file photo

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – August 1, 2014) The United Nations has not received any hard evidence that Russia supplied pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine with weapons, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said Thursday. “We were unable to get hard evidence of the supply of weapons,” Pillay said in comments carried by ITAR-Tass. Washington and Kiev have […]

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Russia Beyond the Headlines Press Digest: Heightened rhetoric and tougher sanctions

Collage of Russian Newspapers

(Russia Beyond the Headlines Press Digest – rbth.ru – Sofia Savina, special to RBTH – July 31, 2014) RBTH presents a selection of views from leading Russian media on the latest developments in Ukraine, including statements by Russia’s ambassador to the UN, a summary of EU sanctions and the outlook for Ukraine’s economy. Novaya Gazeta The newspaper Novaya Gazeta features […]

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Interfax: Ukrainian military are pressuring Donbas Orthodox Christians – Metropolitan Onufry

Ukraine Map and Flag

MOSCOW. Aug 1 (Interfax) – Metropolitan of Chernivtsi and Bukovina Onufry, the locum of the Kyiv Metropolia, has accused the Ukrainian military of pressuring Orthodox Christians in Donbas. “I have to state violations of the rights and freedoms of believers and interference in the work of parishes of the Donetsk diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church by the militant contingent […]

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