The only good thing about Debaltseve, with a pre-war population of 25,000 people, is the spring weather. The road to Debaltseve is severely damaged, but not empty, as a convoy of green Ural trucks head to the city. Kuzorev said the trucks are loaded with humanitarian aid for the civilians left behind after the intense battle. …
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – MOSCOW BLOG: Ben Aris in Moscow – March 13, 2015) Moscow is gripped by the disappearance of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who hasn’t been seen in public for a week. Is he dead? Is there a palace coup underway? Perhaps he has sneaked off to marry his girlfriend, or he is just undergoing another […]
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(Interfax – Luhansk, Ukraine, March 13, 2015) The Contact Group on Ukraine will chiefly focus on the first tree points of the Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements in reviewing compliance with the agreements during a planned videoconference, the chief negotiator of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic said. However, the group may also get down to […]
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(Voice of America – voanews.com – Patrick Wells – March 12, 2015) After months of fighting in eastern Ukraine, the presence of the Ukrainian military and the shelling of civilian neighborhoods seem to be pushing more men to join the rebellion. New recruits for Ukraine’s rebel army, part of a battalion of Don Cossacks, are on their way out of […]
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As Russian oil supplies increase, Gulf states are forced to drop prices to remain competitive (Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Anna Kuchma, RBTH – March 12, 2015) Russia boosted oil supplies to China, Japan and South Korea by 10 million tons in 2014, increasing the proportion of oil exports to Asia from 7.2 percent to 8.7 percent. The […]
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(Interfax – March 11, 2015) The Basmannyy Court has given Zaur Dadayev, accused in the case of murder of politician Boris Nemtsov, an opportunity to state his position regarding the investigators’ request for his arrest, the press-service of the court has said. “Dadayev was given the right to speak. But he thought that the criminal case was being heard, while […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Mark Adomanis in Philadelphia) Writing and thinking about Russia can often have a rather surreal quality to it. Something about the place seems to short-circuit peoples’ critical thinking skills. Serious pundits write things (“Russia life expectancy is collapsing!”) that are flatly contradicted by recent academic research and that don’t withstand even the most cursory […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Graham Stack in Donetsk – March 12, 2015) A line of fresh flower-heaped graves marks the northern edge of Donetsk’s Scheglovskoe cemetery, where 33 coal miners killed in a pit blast on March 4 lie. Only 50 metres away stands a pithead of the massive Zasyadko mine, where the men met their deaths. The […]
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Wall Street Journal: A Manhattan federal judge has ordered London-based hedge fund manager William Browder to comply with a subpoena that could force him to reveal the sources of information he gave to federal prosecutors in a high-profile money-laundering case. …
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DONETSK. March 12 (Interfax) – The militia has again accused the Ukrainian army of breaching the truce. “Fifty-one violations of the ceasefire regime have been reported over the past day. The Ukrainian authorities claimed to have withdrawn artillery guns but we are still being informed about artillery systems staying on their positions. The Ukrainian group is being reinforced in the […]
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MOSCOW. March 12 (Interfax) – Russian President Vladimir Putin has a very busy schedule at this time, presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov has said. “He is holding meetings all the time, but not all of them are public. His schedule is very busy these days. He is discussing crisis-linked issues and other matters. He is keeping in touch with the […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Naubet Bisenov in Almaty – March 11, 2015) Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has ruled the Central Asian nation with an iron fist for more than a quarter of a century, has agreed to his Nur Otan party’s nomination to stand for another term. The 2007 amendment to the Kazakh constitution abolished term limits […]
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(Interfax – March 11, 2015) Russia is ready for negotiations concerning a new treaty regarding the control of conventional weapons in Europe, Mikhail Ulyanov, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s department on non-proliferation and arms control issues, said. “We are ready to consider the possibility and hold appropriate negotiations regarding a new agreement that is in line with the new […]
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(Interfax – March 10, 2015) Former NATO Secretary General and EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana is sticking to his desire for a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis. The Ukraine conflict is being resolved in a diplomatic manner, Solana told Interfax, adding he did not want to give an impression that he preferred other methods. He said they should […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Peter Spinella – March 11, 2015) A Russian opera director who found himself mired in legal controversy after he provoked the ire of a local church leader was cleared of a charge of offending the sentiments of religious believers, the theater announced Tuesday via Twitter. Director Timofei Kulyabin had faced administrative charges for offending religious […]
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Johnson’s Russia List JRL 2015-#53 :: Monday 16 March 2015 A project of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php 1. www.belgraviadispatch.com: Gregory Djerejian, REALISTIC APPRAISAL OF RUSSIA’S POLICY ISN’T TANTAMOUNT TO A PUTIN APOLOGIA. 2. http://readrussia.com: Mark Adomanis, Is It All […]
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Subject: To Post: ASN 2015 World Convention Preliminary Program Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2015 1 From: Dominique Arel <darel@uottawa.ca> ASN 2015 WORLD CONVENTION PROGRAM 160+ PANELS ON THE BALKANS, CENTRAL EUROPE, RUSSIA, UKRAINE/BELARUS, THE CAUCASUS, EURASIA (incl. CHINA), TURKEY/GREECE, MIGRATION, and NATIONALISM STUDIES The preliminary program of the ASN 2015 World Convention can be downloaded at nationalities.org/uploads/documents/ ASN15_Preliminary_Program-6mar.pdf. The Convention, […]
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In the year since Crimea was absorbed by Russia, foreigners living in the country have had to make adjustments due to sanctions and rising geopolitical tensions. Has Crimea affected their day-to-day lives? …
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(Interfax – March 11, 2015) Russia decided to suspend its work in the Joint Consultative Group on the CFE Treaty because it could not use this format to discuss issues relating to conventional weapons control in Europe, Mikhail Ulyanov, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s department on non-proliferation and arms control issues, said. “When Wikileaks published secret documents, Department of State […]
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US Department of State TESTIMONY ON UKRAINE BEFORE THE SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE Testimony Victoria Nuland Assistant Secretary, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs Statement Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Washington, DC March 10, 2015 As prepared Chairman Corker, Ranking Member Menendez and members of this committee-thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today on the situation […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Peter Hobson – March 11, 2015) Representative and branch offices of foreign companies working in Russia are in a race against time to re-register with the authorities or lose their license to operate in the country. The re-registration was intended to streamline bureaucracy for foreign firms, but organizational failures and lack of proper warning have […]
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Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest man, has financed the success of Shakhtar Donetsk FC. But war in the Donbas means that the club is now playing in Lviv, 1200 kilometres away from its home in Donetsk. Can it survive? (opendemocracy.net – Manuel Veth – March 11, 2015) Manuel Veth is a history PhD candidate at King’s College London, researching the economics […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – bne IntelliNews – March 11, 2015) The International Monetary Fund is ready to disburse to Ukraine the first tranche of an agreed extended funding facility (EFF), confirming on its website that the sole subject of discussion at an IMF board meeting on March 11 will be the loan. At the same time, Ukrainian President […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, March 10, 2015) It is time to give Nevil Chamberlain a rest as the sole poster child for appeasement. Yes, he appeased Hitler in a hopeless quest to avoid war. He even was honest enough to say that was what he was doing. But when Hitler violated Munich and seized all of Czechoslovakia, […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Ben Aris in Moscow – March 6, 2015) So far in 2015 Russia has been one of the best performing equity markets, up 15% year-to-date, following three straight weeks of inflows following the Minsk II ceasefire agreement signed in February. So far in 2015 Russia has been one of the best performing equity markets, […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Leonid Bershidsky – March 6, 2015) [Chart here bloombergview.com/articles/2015-03-06/ukraine-s-economy-is-worse-than-it-looks] The world’s worst-performing currency this year, the Ukrainian hryvnia, has bounced back 47 percent since last week’s precipitous plunge. It’s tempting to conclude Ukraine has pulled back from the brink of financial disaster. In reality, the Ukrainian central bank and government are just sweeping their problems under […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – bne IntelliNews – March 6, 2015) One year after the Ukrainian revolution, a Soviet-era prosecutor is becoming a hero of the post-revolutionary camp, while Maidan heroes fall by the wayside. As post-Yanukovych Ukraine enters its second year, the impressive unity initially shown by its supporters is fragmenting amid a new sobriety, as former heroes […]
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Johnson’s Russia List JRL 2015-#52 :: Sunday 15 March 2015 A project of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php 1. Moscow Times: Russian State TV Shows Footage of Putin Working in Good Health. 2. The Unz Review: Anatoly Karlin, Schrodinger’s Putin. […]
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MOSCOW. March 6 (Interfax) – The electronic archive of the Communist International (Comintern), with a database containing 1.5 million pages, has become available for free use on the Internet, says Andrei Artizov, the head of the Federal Archive Agency. “In accordance with the agency’s decision, the new electronic archive resource was converted on a new electronic platform and is now […]
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Subject: Are we like the frog? The responsibility of Western media Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2015 11:32:16 +0000 From: Antony Penaud <antonypenaud@yahoo.fr> Antony Penaud received his DPhil from the University of Oxford in 2000. He is French and lives in London. His essays on the Ukrainian crisis can be found on https://www.scribd.com/AntonyKharms. Are we like the frog? The responsibility of Western […]
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(Interfax – March 5, 2015) Russian Deputy Defence Minister Anatoliy Antonov has criticized statements by American officials that thousands of Russian military personnel are operating in Ukraine. “Then what about the statement of the chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ General Staff, Gen [Viktor] Muzhenko, that there are no armed forces of the Russian Federation in Ukraine?” Antonov said at […]
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European leaders will ask their foreign policy chief next week to draw up a plan to counter Russian “disinformation campaigns” over the conflict in Ukraine, draft conclusions of an EU summit showed. …
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[check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List JRL 2015-#51 :: Friday 13 March 2015 A project of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php 1. Harvard University Department of Slavic Languages & […]
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Efforts to restore financial stability in Ukraine face “exceptionally high” risks from further conflict and disgruntled creditors, the International Monetary Fund said on Thursday. … http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/03/12/uk-imf-ukraine-idUKKBN0M81OX20150312
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The killing of Russian opposition figure Boris Nemtsov within sight of the Kremlin has exposed rarely seen tensions between different camps inside President Vladimir Putin’s system of rule. No outsiders can know with any certainty what is happening behind the red-brick walls of the Kremlin, but some of Nemtsov’s associates say his shooting is being used by one faction to […]
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THE people who killed Boris Nemtsov, a liberal politician, on February 27th, did not expect to be arrested. That was clear from their impudence. Having shot Mr Nemtsov in the back, in the heart of Moscow, they did not cross the river to leave the city centre. Instead, they circled the Kremlin, passed the Duma, Russia’s parliament, and turned into […]
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A new documentary to be aired on Russian state TV confirms a Kremlin plot to occupy Crimea, which has a Russian naval port. The annexation fueled a still-unresolved conflict in eastern Ukraine. … http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2015/0312/Putin-s-grab-of-Crimea-still-rankles-West.-How-about-Crimeans-video
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Twenty-five years after the Cold War’s end, the struggle for Ukraine’s survival as an independent nation has become a test of the character of our time. Since the protests last year on the Maidan, Kiev’s main square, the country has faced two crippling wars: a hot one over its eastern provinces, and another one over efforts to prevent its political […]
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DONETSK. March 10 (Interfax) – The Donbas militia has presented three lists of approximately 2,000 captives planned to be exchanged with Ukraine. “The first list is comprised of the names of about 220 soldiers, the second of another 800, and the third list contains the names of civilians, 900 people, ombudsman of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Darya Morozova […]
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(Interfax – March 9, 2015) Ukraine is considering the political proposals made by the unrecognized Donbass republics, according to the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic envoy Vladislav Deinego. “Progress is visible. We have had our position heard and received information that our proposals are being considered,” Deinego said at a press conference on Monday, broadcast by the Rossiya 24 television station. […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – bne IntelliNews – March 9, 2015) Ukraine’s bankers stole UAH58bn from their banks in 2014-2015, state refunds to depositors of bankrupt banks were equivalent to 10% of total budget revenues, while total losses from bank insolvencies comprised 9% of GDP. These are just some of the disastrous figures Valery Gontareva, head of the National […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Ben Aris in Moscow – March 9, 2015) [Charts here http://www.bne.eu/content/story/russian-ruble-seen-appreciating-third-year] After crashing in December, Russia’s ruble has made a remarkable comeback since February by rising about 15% against the dollar, making it the best performing currency amongst the 14 in Emerging Europe so far this year, according to Bloomberg. And the appreciation of the ruble […]
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[check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List JRL 2015-#50 :: Thursday 12 March 2015 A project of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php 1. Wall Street Journal: 5 Things About the […]
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A former regional governor has been found dead in Ukraine, the latest in a series of deaths involving allies of deposed President Viktor Yanukovych. Oleksandr Peklushenko, former head of Zaporizhzhya, had suffered a gunshot wound to the neck and authorities said initial inquiries pointed to suicide. … http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31855700
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Canada has spent the last year aggressively imposing sanctions on Russian and Ukrainian players with ties to the simmering conflict in eastern Ukraine, but experts say there’s no evidence that the penalties are having any political impact on the Putin government. …
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We spoke a few months ago, Dmitri. At that time you said something that was very striking, and that is that we would look back on the period of 1992 to 2014, barely more than 20 years, as the inter-Cold War period. I would assume that not much has happened in the intervening weeks and months to change that analysis. […]
» Read moreThe war in Ukraine has exacerbated internal tension about whether the country should ally itself with Moscow or the West. That question has generated turmoil inside Ukraine’s main security agency, as described in a page-one article in The Wall Street Journal. …
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – March 11, 2015) Russian media has reported that the investigation into the murder of Boris Nemtsov is suffering under a power struggle between President Vladimir Putin’s protege Ramzan Kadyrov and the FSB. The claim that Nemtsov was shot dead by a devout Muslim who reportedly felt insulted by the politician’s support for […]
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KYIV. March 10 (Interfax) – The Ukrainian army is threatening to bring back all artillery guns withdrawn earlier if the militia mounts an offense on its positions. “Our frontline units still have heavy infantry weapons which can stop an offensive of heavy armaments so that they are not endangered. If the militia moves forward, all the artillery guns will be […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – March 10, 2015) As the man suspected of having gunned down opposition leader Boris Nemtsov steps from the Kremlin allegedly confessed on Sunday, citing devotion to Islam as his motive, pundits agreed that the truth is likely much more complex than it seems. Some reasoned that it would have been impossible for […]
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