(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – June 30, 2015) Two out of three Russians believe that Western governments want to “weaken and humiliate” Russia with their sanctions over the Ukraine crisis, and only 5 percent think the measures are aimed at ending the bloodshed in Ukraine, a new poll indicates. Nearly half of Russians – 46 percent – […]
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(From the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – unocha.org – ©2015 Reprinted with the permission of the United Nations – also appeared at unocha.org/top-stories/all-stories/five-things-you-need-know-about-crisis-ukraine – June 29, 2015 ) “We can make a difference … but we do need to get the funds,” said UN Resident Coordinator Neal Walker on Friday at a New York Headquarters Briefing on […]
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(Interfax – June 26, 2015) Russian society became more liberal to sex before marriage in the past 25 years, a poll conducted by the All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) shows. The poll, which surveys 1,600 people, was conducted in 130 populated areas of Russia. It shows that the percentage of respondents who believe sex before marriage is unacceptable for […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Ben Aris in Moscow – June 30, 2015) Ukraine has lined up all the ducks it needs to successfully default on its privately held bonds. Ukrainian Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko indicated she wanted to meet with both the IMF and the ad hoc committee of private creditors in Washington before or on June 30. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – June 30, 2015) Several Russian regions have been plagued recently by locusts, spiders and snakes, media reports and government officials said Monday. Locusts have destroyed large swaths of crops in the republic of Bashkortostan and the Orenburg region, prompting the authorities to declare a state of emergency, Channel One reported. An aircraft was scrambled to […]
» Read moreJohnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#128 Tuesday 30 June 2015 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs The contents do not necessarily represent the views of IERES or the George Washington University. JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php Support for JRL is provided in part by […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, June 29, 2015) Vladimir Putin’s “peace offensive,” marked by his call to US President Barack Obama, means that the situation is becoming “really dangerous,” Andrey Piontkovsky says, because the Kremlin leader has not changed his goal of destroying Ukraine as a state but only the means he is prepared to use to […]
» Read moreJohnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#127 Monday 29 June 2015 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs The contents do not necessarily represent the views of IERES or the George Washington University. JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php Support for JRL is provided in part by a […]
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(“Podcast: Russia – their changing relationship with the world. President Obama’s special adviser on Russia discusses the rise of the new and troubled relationship in Europe’s east” – Celeste Wallander – wiltonpark.org.uk – June 25, 2015) Celeste Wallander, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russia and Central Asia, National Security Council, Washington DC, discusses “Russia – their changing […]
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The Kyiv Post and Olena Gordiienko comment on Ukrainian labor law and its impact on real world labor practices, business and investment. Ukrainian labor legislation is paternalistic and focuses excessively on employee rights, many lawyers and employers say … it also leads to unintended consequences. Ukrainians earn less than any other nation in Europe, $180 per month on average. Unemployment rose from 7.3 […]
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(Interfax – June 28, 2015) Former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul has said NATO is not planning to invade Russia and there is no need for the Russian leadership to deploy S-400 air defense systems on its Western borders. “NATO will never invade Russia,” he twitted on Sunday. The former ambassador said the Russian leadership is groundlessly concerned about […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, June 26, 2015) By “slightly pushing” Russia by increasing the alliance’s military presence in Europe, the USA and NATO are waging a “game of nerves” for now, however should any practical steps be taken towards an escalation near Russia’s western border, Moscow will respond without delay, a source in the military and diplomatic circles has told Interfax-AVN. […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – CONFERENCE CALL: Henry Kirby in London – June 29, 2015) Russia’s wobbling economy will likely “muddle through the next couple of years,” according to panelists at a bne IntelliNews debate on June 25. The event, entitled “Russia: Which Way Now”, held at Cass Business School in London, aimed to form a broad prognosis for […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Nick Allen in Berlin – June 26, 2015) You know Russia’s hurting when it moves to cut more than 10% from its defence budget, as written into the 2016-18 draft just approved by the cabinet. But you would never know it from the flow of bullish comments by the political elite about what a […]
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(Interfax – June 29, 2015) The ongoing Western sanctions are targeting broad strata of the Russian population, 46% of Russians said in a poll held by Levada Center. Less than a third (29%) believe that the sanctions apply to “a narrow range of persons supervising the Russian policy towards Ukraine” and 19% are confident that the administrations of Western countries […]
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MOSCOW. June 29 (Interfax) – Russia’s policy of supporting the Syrian authorities and people remains unchanged, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. “We see how complicated situation[al] development in Syria is, firstly the one related to international terrorism aggression. We understand that amid such situations success always corresponds with certain issues, and military failures could occur. But we are certain that […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, June 28, 2015) Many Western obituaries and appreciations of the late Yevgeny Primakov portray him as an alternative to Vladimir Putin and someone who would have led Russia in an entirely different direction than the current Kremlin leader. But two Russian analysts argue that in fact Primakov laid much of the groundwork […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Oleg Yegorov, special to RBTH – June 29, 2015) On June 26, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriages were legal on the whole territory of the country. The ruling generated a strong reaction [in] Russia, with some conservative politicians slamming it, while some liberals voiced support for the U.S. and the global […]
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(Interfax – June 28, 2015) Deputy chairman of the Federation Council Committee for Constitutional Legislation Konstantin Dobrynin has suggested that the American “don’t ask, don’t tell” principle be enshrined in the Russian law with respect to people of non-heterosexual orientation. One may laugh at America or a tolerant Europe for as long as one likes; it should be admitted, however, […]
» Read moreJohnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#126 Friday 26 June 2015 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs The contents do not necessarily represent the views of IERES or the George Washington University. JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php Support for JRL is provided in part by […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Leonid Bershidsky – June 25, 2015) The search for alternative investors and markets has been a political priority for President Vladimir Putin and his government since Western countries imposed economic sanctions on Russia last year. The resulting pivot to China may seem merely cosmetic, but it is happening. Admittedly, most of the vague and extremely long-term […]
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YEREVAN. June 25 (Interfax) – The Armenian police sees no preconditions for the protests in central Yerevan to develop into a revolution, Colonel Valery Osipian, deputy head of the Yerevan police, said. “It’s strange. What revolution or Maidan are they talking about? Of course, there are no such tendencies, there are no preconditions,” Osipian told Interfax. “Foreign experience should not […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anastasia Bazenkova – March 24, 2015) Russian movies, which have struggled to gain a footing abroad since the fall of the Soviet Union, are now breaking into the world’s second-largest box office just across the border in China. In 2013, the big-budget war film “Stalingrad” became the first Russian movie to get a wide release […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Jennifer Monaghan – June 25, 2015) The majority of Russians want to live in a secular state but almost half of the population is happy for the church to influence societal morality, a survey by state-run pollster VTsIOM has found. Sixty-four percent of those polled said they were in favor of the continued separation of […]
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Deseret News marks the anniversary of Napoleon’s 1812 invasion of Russia. On June 24, 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte made perhaps his greatest blunder by invading Russia. Though he recognized the dangers of invading such a huge country, political factors demanded that he move against Russia or risk losing French domination of Europe. * * * After the Battle of Borodino in […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – June 25, 2015) The image of Russia’s increasingly friendly relations with China took something of a battering this week when a regional governor’s stated intention to rent out swathes of land to a Chinese investment company was met at home by a storm of indignation. After the governor of the Zabaikalsky region […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Iana Dreyer in Brussels – June 24, 2015) Russia has formally requested that a dispute settlement panel be established at the World Trade Organization to rule on its complaints against EU energy market laws. From a legal and geopoliticial perspective, this is perhaps one of the most interesting cases the WTO will have to […]
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MOSCOW. June 24 (Interfax) – The extension of Russian countersanctions for a year meets the interests of the country’s economic development, presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov has said. “Our interests, I mean the interests of the Russian Federation from the viewpoint of the economic development of the country,” he said to journalists answering the question in relation to what Russia […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Ben Aris – June 24, 2015) The world may be huffing and puffing and trying to blow Russia’s house down. But the house made of brick is proving to be a match for sanctions and falling oil prices, to the extent that Russia’s leading residential developer Etalon Group continues to see its business prosper […]
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(Interfax – June 20, 2015) It doesn’t make sense to move the 2018 presidential election to an earlier date, head of the Russian presidential administration Sergey Ivanov has said. “If you ask my opinion, I see absolutely no sense in this,” Ivanov said in an interview in the Vesti v Subbotu with Sergey Brilev programme on state-owned official Rossiya 1 […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Daria Litvinova – June 25, 2015) The Moscow City Duma courted controversy Wednesday with its determination that a proposed referendum question on the restoration of a monument to feared Soviet secret police chief Felix Dzerzhinsky was consistent with the law. But Dzerzhinsky – a Bolshevik revolutionary and founder of the dreaded Cheka secret police, which […]
» Read moreJohnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#125 Thursday 25 June 2015 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs The contents do not necessarily represent the views of IERES or the George Washington University. JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php Support for JRL is provided in part by a […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Tom Balmforth – MOSCOW, June 24, 2015) A Russian consumer-protection group lambasted by President Vladimir Putin as a “foreign agent” after giving cautionary advice to Russians traveling to annexed Crimea has accused Putin of “paranoia” and called him “badly informed.” Mikhail Anshakov, chairman of the Moscow-based Society for the Protection of Consumer Rights (OZPP), said his […]
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(Stratfor.com – June 23, 2015) Conversation: The Standoff Between Russia and the West Over Ukraine is republished with permission of Stratfor; article also appeared at stratfor.com/video/conversation-standoff-between-russia-and-west-over-ukraine. Transcript follows below video. Video Transcript Lauren Goodrich: Hello, my name is Lauren Goodrich, and I’m the senior Eurasia analyst here at Stratfor. I’m joined by Sim Tack, our military analyst, and today we’re going to […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Elena Popina, Marton Eder – June 23, 2015) International Monetary Fund staff formed a preliminary view that $3 billion in bonds sold to Russia by Ukraine should be classified as official rather than private debt, according to a person familiar with the matter. Treating the bonds as state aid, as Russia has sought, would exclude them […]
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Ukraine’s former President Viktor Yanukovych has said he accepts some responsibility for the killings that led to his overthrow in February 2014.
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Night has fallen over the Russian-occupied city ofHorlivka that lies 10 kilometers from the war front.
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The New York Times covers NATO exercises and policies towards Russia. After years of facing threats far beyond its borders, NATO is now reinvigorating plans to confront a much larger and more aggressive threat from its past: Moscow. This seismic shift has been apparent in military training exercises in this former Soviet republic [Latvia], which is now a NATO member […]
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MOSCOW. June 24 (Interfax) – Federation Council International Affairs Committee Chairman Konstantin Kosachyov has detected ‘color revolution’ symptoms in the latest events in Armenia. “The situation is developing as a conflict of people displeased with the economic and social situation in Armenia,” Kosachyov told reporters on Wednesday. “But one should not be mistaken: practically every ‘color revolution’ started with such […]
» Read moreJohnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#124 Wednesday 24 June 2015 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs The contents do not necessarily represent the views of IERES or the George Washington University. JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php Support for JRL is provided in part by […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Daria Litvinova – June 23, 2015) Moscow looks set to get its first referendum in post-Soviet times – and one of the burning issues on the ballot will be the restoration of a monument to the founder of the secret police to central Moscow. On June 11, the Moscow election committee approved the Communist Party’s […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Patricia Hill and Ron Synovitz – June 23, 2015) Russia saw its biggest loss of democracy in a decade last year, while it and other authoritarian states took aggressive action to block efforts to form new democracies elsewhere in Europe and Eurasia, a new report by Freedom House finds. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s moves to annex […]
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Unpredictability of oil prices and ruble’s rate poses threats, as does a U.S. rate increase, bank’s report says
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(Interfax – Gorki, June 22, 2015) Russian Prime Minister Dmitriy Medvedev is convinced that Russians and Ukrainians remain close, and the current difficulties in relations are temporary. On the anniversary of the start of the Great Patriotic War [USSR’s war against Nazi Germany and its allies on the Eastern Front in 1941-45] on Monday [22 June], the prime minister met […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Henry Kirby in London – June 22, 2015) Russia has fallen from the “positive” into the “neutral” expectations range in a Europe-wide study measuring business confidence of companies operating there. Russia’s score in the Association of European Businesses’ AEB-GfK Index dropped by 9 points from 115 in 2014 to 106 this year, out of […]
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Subject: RUSSIA AND AMERICA: A FALSE START TOWARD A NEW DÉTENTE (response to Leslie Gelb) Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 16:55:45 +0000 (UTC) From: Kirk Bennett <kirkbennett7@yahoo.com> RUSSIA AND AMERICA: A FALSE START TOWARD A NEW DÉTENTE By Kirk Bennett Kirk Bennett is a former Foreign Service Officer who served in both Moscow and Kyiv. The opinions in this article […]
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The United States will pre-position tanks, artillery and other military equipment in eastern and central Europe, U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced on Tuesday, moving to reassure NATO allies unnerved by Russian involvement in Ukraine.
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