(RFE/RL – rferl.org – November 8, 2014) The Pentagon’s spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby, says he has “no independent operational reporting” to confirm Kyiv’s claim that Russia sent an armored column into eastern Ukraine on November 6. Kirby said the Pentagon can confirm “a continued presence ” of unhelpful Russian battalion tactical groups “right across the border” in Russian territory […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, November 8, 2014) What Russians now have in the Russian Federation is a Soviet system without communism and its administrative arrangements, and what they dream of is “a Soviet empire without communists,” an entity not equivalent to the tsarist empire as some think but one that reflects their memories of the USSR. […]
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BEIJING. Nov 10 (Interfax) – Some sections of the Silk Road route pass through Russia, according to Russian Direct Investment Fund head Kirill Dmitriyev. “The route is being chosen, and Russia should hold a very active position in this respect. The Russian president said earlier today that we had plenty of infrastructural capacity for building a part of that route […]
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KIEV, November 9 (RIA Novosti) – Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko has stated on his Facebook page Sunday, he will not allow the division of the country on linguistic grounds, though he still intends to keep the Ukrainian language as the only state language. “After what we all have gone through and are going through this year, no one will ever […]
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Subject: Kargopol Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 04:03:29 -0600 From: William Brumfield <william.brumfield@gmail.com> My current article for Russia beyond the Headlines is devoted to the Cathedral Square ensemble of Kargopol, one of the most beautiful of northern Russia’s ancient towns rbth.com/travel/2014/11/07/the_shrines_of_kargopol_preserving_the_art_of_the_russian_north_41243.html For best results with the slide show (full screen), click the 4-arrow icon at lower right of photo window. […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 10 (Interfax) – An overwhelming majority of Russians (85%) know that the Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago, in November 1989, while 13% learned about the fact from the Public Opinion Foundation during a poll. Thirty-eight percent of the 1,500 respondents polled in 43 regions in November thought that the historic significance of the fall of the Berlin […]
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From: Igor Rotar <igorotar@gmail.com> Date: Mon, Nov 3, 2014 at 12:37 PM Subject: from a Russian journalist Igor Rotar My name is Igor Rotar.I am a veteran journalist and researcher who recently received a green card in the USA and currently lives in San Diego. I am the author of three books about the ethnic conflicts in the Soviet Union, […]
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Johnson’s Russia List JRL 2014-#233 :: Sunday 9 November 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 me JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php 1. Paul Goble: Window on Eurasia: Putin’s Valdai Speech Echoes Not Churchill’s at Fulton but Hitler’s at Berchtesgaden, Illarionov Says. 2. The Guardian […]
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[check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List JRL 2014-#232 :: Friday 7 November 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 me JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php Ukraine 1. Reuters: Ukraine’s ‘kamikaze’ PM relishes hawkish reputation. (Arseny Yatseniuk) 2. RIA […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Henry Meyer – November 7, 2014) Russian troops marched in Red Square to commemorate a World War II parade held under the noses of German invaders in 1941 two days after President Vladimir Putin defended a 1939 non-aggression pact with Hitler. Six thousand soldiers and cadets accompanied by World War II-era warplanes and other weaponry today […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – November 7, 2014) A state-controlled media holding has fired an Ekho Moskvy radio journalist, citing ethical norms, and threatened to dismiss the radio station’s long-standing chief editor who has led it as one of the final strongholds of media freedom in the country. The dismissal of Alexander Plyuschev followed a Twitter post […]
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MOSCOW, November 7 (RIA Novosti) – Moscow supports the Geneva format of settling the political crisis in Ukraine with the participation of Russia, Ukraine, the United States and the European Union, but says Kiev should be prepared for the meeting as well as not to waste time, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said Friday. “We take this approach seriously […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Kateryna Choursina, Daryna Krasnolutska – November 7, 2014) Ukraine’s military said its forces killed as many as 200 rebels in fighting in Donetsk as dozens of tanks and other military vehicles crossed the border into Ukraine from Russia. “Insurgents who were shelling Ukrainian troop positions at Donetsk Airport yesterday were killed by government troop artillery strikes,” […]
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MOSCOW, November 7 (RIA Novosti) – Allegations voiced by Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird and a number of representatives from the United States and NATO about Russian troops supposedly moving toward the country’s border with Ukraine have no grounds and are based on rumors, a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said Friday. “These announcements were made citing some ‘reports’ without any […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – November 7, 2014) Russia has launched ‘Operation Domino’ against Ukraine, says Ukraine’s security service, SBU. Kyiv says the Kremlin is flooding Ukraine’s Donbass with guerilla fighters and their military trainers, intending to use the rebel-held region as a bridgehead for further expansion across Ukrainian territory. According to SBU spokesperson Mariyan Lubkivsky, speaking on a […]
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KYIV. Nov 7 (Interfax) – The Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) says the number of armed opponents of Kyiv is insufficient for mounting a major offensive against the Ukrainian army positions. “We cannot speak about an offensive so far because the forces remaining on the Ukrainian territory are definitely insufficient for a major advance,” NSDC Information Analysis Center […]
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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 […]
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MOSCOW, November 7 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s official stance on the recent elections in the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics (DRP, LPR) in eastern Ukraine expressed by the country’s Foreign Ministry as “respecting” them does not mean Moscow “recognizes” them, Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov said Friday. “Russia’s official position on the results of the elections is expressed compactly, […]
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(Business New Europe – November 7, 2014) Oil prices fell below $80 for the first time in four years on November 5 after Saudi Arabia and other Opec members refused to cut production. But economists say despite the large movements in the oil price, the de facto freely floating ruble will mitigate much of the economic pain to Russia. “The […]
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[check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List JRL 2014-#231 :: Thursday 6 November 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 Ukraine 1. The National Interest: James Carden, Get Ready, World: Ukraine […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, November 5, 2014) If anyone is going to carry out military aggression against Russia, Aleksandr Khramchikhin, the deputy head of the Moscow Institute for Political and Military Analysis, says, it will not be the West as many Russians think but rather China; and when China does so – and that rather than […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Victoria Zavyalova, special to RBTH – November 5, 2014) Joint programs in regional hospitals are less sensitive to geopolitical disagreements. The desire and energy of Russian and U.S. scientists are what fuel cooperation between Russia and the United States in the field of medicine, which takes place mainly on a non-governmental level. Research […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – John Freedman – November 6, 2014) To be or not to be, that is the question these days for Teatr.doc. A move by city authorities to oust the famous little theater from its basement in the center of Moscow will probably be successful. The chances are better than good that Doc, as the theater is […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – November 6, 2014) Russian tabloid LifeNews removed a report from its website Thursday that claimed prominent opposition activist Alexey Navalny had secretly been receiving state funds after the Kremlin vehemently denied the allegations, the TASS news agency reported. “Reports about the Kremlin financing [Navalny] are absolute nonsense and a stunt to increase ratings, with all […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, November 5, 2014) Rights activists have said that the Ukrainian authorities have barred activist of the Russian centre Memorial Vitaliy Ponomarev from entering Ukraine. “They told Vitaliy Ponomarev, a member of the council of the human rights centre Memorial, who arrived in Lviv on 4 November, that he had been barred from entering the country,” Memorial [press […]
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(RIA Novosti – Brussels, November 5, 2014) NATO should be encouraging Kiev to engage in dialogue with Donbass representatives in order to demonstrate commitment to stabilization in Ukraine, permanent representative of the Russian Federation at the alliance Aleksandr Grushko has told RIA Novosti. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday [4 November] that NATO members had recently “observed Russian troops’ […]
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(RIA Novosti – November 5, 2014) The One Russia and A Just Russia factions in the State Duma believe that the LDPR’s initiative to recognize the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics (DPR and LPR) is not relevant at the moment, the Russian RIA Novosti reported on 5 November. Even the Communist Party, although it supports the LDPR’s proposal, wants […]
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MOSCOW, November 6 (RIA Novosti) – The self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk announced Thursday they had prepared a new version of a peace plan for the upcoming reconciliation talks after Kiev withdrew its bill on special status for the regions. “This [a new version] is needed because Ukraine has unilaterally annulled [the previous version] by recalling its bills on […]
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DONETSK, November 6 (RIA Novosti) – The self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) has to defend itself as Kiev de-facto resumed a full-scale military action in eastern Ukraine, DPR leader Andrei Purgin said Thursday. “A full-scale war is underway. We are under attack, and we are defending ourselves,” he said. Earlier on Thursday DPR reported that a tank column of Kiev […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – November 6, 2014) More than 60 percent of Russians think it is impossible to get rich honestly in their country, according to a survey published Wednesday by the Levada Center, an independent pollster. Fifteen percent of respondents said that it was possible to become wealthy honestly 15 to 20 years ago, but that times have […]
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(Interfax – November 5, 2014) The Republicans who have gained control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate in the U.S. Congress following the latest elections are likely to put pressure on a politically weakened President Barack Obama to toughen policy in relation to Russia and resolving the issue of weapons for Ukraine, says Alexei Makarkin, First Vice […]
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(Interfax – November 6, 2014) Sixty-seven percent of Russian citizens recently interviewed by the Levada Center believe that relations between Russia and the United States have grown worse in the Obama era, the center’s sociologists told Interfax. A mere 9 percent of respondents said they see positive changes in ties between the two countries, 16 percent believe that these relations […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexey Eremenko – November 6, 2014) Women in Ukraine’s separatist-held Luhansk region will be arrested if they are seen in cafes, an insurgent warlord has said. “A woman should be the keeper of the hearth, a mother,” Wraith Brigade commander Alexei Mozgovoi says in a video recently posted on YouTube. “If you want to be […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, November 6, 2014) Even though some Western leaders cannot bring themselves to describe what Russia is doing in Ukraine as “an invasion,” Ukraine today is under a mortal threat, and according to Arkady Babchenko, Kyiv and the Ukrainian people are fighting not just to recover the Donbas and Crimea but for their […]
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[check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List JRL 2014-#230 :: Wednesday 5 November 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 Ukraine 1. Global Times: Dmitri Trenin, West and Russia now in […]
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[“Mr. Putin resumes his chipping away at Ukraine” – Washington Post editorial – Nov. 3, 2014] The Washington Post editors characterize unauthorized elections held by pro-Russia separatists in eastern Ukraine as another stage in Russian aggression: Russia has taken another significant step toward creating a puppet state inside Ukraine. Over the weekend the Moscow-controlled cities of Donetsk and Luhansk and nearby […]
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[“Ukraine PM says rebel-led regions will never receive funds from Kiev” – Reuters – Nov. 5, 2014] Reuters covers the aftermath in Ukraine of unauthorized would-be local or regional elections held by separatists, and Ukraine’s decision to cut off central government funding of Donetsk and Luhansk until the areas return to government control. Yatseniuk said the government would ordinarily have paid […]
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[“Ukraine peace plan in tatters, ‘frozen conflict’ takes shape” – Reuters 11.5.14] Reuters covers the aftermath in Ukraine of unauthorized elections staged by pro-Russia separatists in parts of the Ukrainian east. Kiev said on Wednesday it would halt payment of state funds in areas controlled by pro-Moscow rebels, as both sides hardened positions in what is rapidly becoming a “frozen […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – November 5, 2014) Russia fell eight places from last year in the 2014 edition of the Legatum Institute Prosperity Index – a yearly rating of countries’ performance across several categories of well-being, including economic indicators such as gross domestic product, but also levels of safety, freedom, health and happiness. This year, Russia ranked the lowest […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Brian Whitmore – November 5, 2014) As one of his activities marking the Unity Day holiday, Vladimir Putin joined Patriarch Kirill to view an exhibition commemorating the Rurik Dynasty, which established tsarism in Russia and ruled for seven centuries. What kind of message was he trying to send? If you look hard enough, and even if […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Allison Quinn – November 5, 2014) Russia’s health minister has promised to consider the demands of Moscow health workers amid ongoing reforms of the capital’s health care system on Monday in the direct aftermath of a thousands-strong street protest, the TASS news agency reported. “The opinions of patients and doctors hold the utmost significance for […]
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(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 […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexey Eremenko – November 5, 2014) Russia marked National Unity Day on Tuesday with a remarkable show of disunity, with three major distinct rallies taking place across Moscow, including the infamous nationalist Russian March. Nationalism in Russia has long been reviled because of its proponents’ penchants for violence and acrid loathing of President Vladimir Putin. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Howard Amos – November 5, 2014) The Russian ruble plunged when trading opened Wednesday as the Central Bank announced it would cap the amount of foreign reserves it spends to defend the currency. The ruble fell to historic lows, diving to 44.98 against the dollar and passing the 56 euro mark shortly after 10 a.m. […]
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(Interfax – November 4, 2014) Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia has criticized the West over attempts to play havoc with the minds of the Russian people through the sanctions it had imposed against Russia, Gazprom-owned Russian TV channel NTV reported on 4 November. “One should make the economic situation worse to play havoc with minds. We are now […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Carl Schreck – November 05, 2014) Ukraine has pledged to recapture them. Separatists vow to expand them. But even as hostilities rage on despite a shaky cease-fire, the areas in eastern Ukraine controlled by Russia-backed rebels appear to be drifting inexorably toward the “F” word, analysts say. “For the foreseeable future — let’s say at least […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Pavel Koshkin, RBTH – November 4, 2014) Can Moscow and Washington reset the educational and cultural collaboration to minimize negative implications of their confrontation? As an innocent bystander to the diplomatic differences between the U.S. and Russia, educational exchanges are facing major cutbacks or have been canceled as pawns in the growing game […]
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(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 […]
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November 5 (RIA Novosti) – The civil war rages in eastern Ukraine despite reconciliation agreements reached this fall with the participation of Russia and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Russian president said Wednesday. “A civil conflict, which in fact is a civil war, rages in Ukraine, near Russian borders. Despite Minsk agreements, peaceful cities are being […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, November 5, 2014) Ever more commentators are suggesting that a new round of Russian military aggression in Ukraine is likely in order to secure a Russian-controlled land corridor to Crimea, an action that some analysts say would cost Russia more killed and wounded than it has suffered in any conflict since World […]
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