(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – January 7, 2015) The Russian Orthodox Church’s Patriarch Kirill prayed for peace in Ukraine and President Vladimir Putin attended mass at a village church in southern Russia, as Russia’s Orthodox believers celebrated Christmas on Wednesday. Russian Orthodox Church holidays are marked according to the old Julian calendar, with Christmas falling on Jan. 7, when it […]
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… 8. Kyiv Post: Talks on Ukraine in Normandy format to continue on Jan. 9.
9. Reuters: War-torn Ukraine sees highest inflation in 14 years.
10. www.opendemocracy.net: Andrii Ianitskyi, The high price of democracy in Ukraine. Ukraine is almost bankrupt. The budget for 2015 is unrealistic. Root and branch reform has stalled. There is a war still going in the east of the country. Where now? …
(RFE/RL – Robert Coalson – January 5, 2015) In the film Leviathan, a drunken mechanic in a far northern Russian town clashes with a greedy, drunken mayor who is determined to expropriate the man’s land for his own mansion. The mayor contemptuously refers to his subjects as “insects” and, in a fit of vodka-fuelled honesty, pulls back the curtain on […]
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(by Kirk Bennett) Kirk Bennett is a former Foreign Service Officer who served in both Moscow and Kyiv. The opinions and characterizations in this piece are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent official positions of the United States Government. Since the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis, and with increasing vehemence as the crisis has deepened, thoughtful people […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Andrii Ianitskyi – January 5, 2015) Andrii Ianitskyi was born in Sevastopol in 1983 and since 2007 has been living in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. He graduated from the Sevastopol branch of Moscow State University in 2007 and became a qualified journalist before working as a journalist and editor in the business media, for companies including Ukrainian News, […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – by Georgy Manaev- January 5, 2015) Communal apartments, where strangers lived as one big family, shaped many generations of Soviet and Russian citizens, and continue to exist even today. The lack of a private life, a striving to dole out rights and responsibilities equally, snitching, and a willingness to help one’s neighbors were […]
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[“Russia ‘may face chaos’ if extra sanctions imposed: Germany” – AFP – January 4, 2015] AFP covers a German official’s assessment of the potential impact of additional sanctions on Russia: Tougher sanctions may destabilise the situation further in Russia and plunge the country into chaos, German deputy chancellor Sigmar Gabriel warned … ‘Whoever wants that will provoke a much more dangerous situation […]
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[“Decoding Vladimir Putin’s Plan: Many say Russia’s leader is trying to strengthen his country’s position in the world” – US News and World Report – Joshua Kucera – January 5, 2015] US News and World Report considers what one could infer about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s true intentions and policies, in the light of Russia’s posture towards Ukraine and the West. […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, January 5, 2014) Three Russian experts with whom Russkaya planeta spoke say that while declines in the standard of living of many Russians in the coming year as a result of the economic crisis may lead to some protests about economic issues, any such demonstrations are unlikely to focus on high politics.the […]
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KYIV. Jan 5 (Interfax) – Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko believes that peace will be restored to the country’s eastern regions when the Ukrainian border is reliably secured and the Kyiv authorities manage to regain control over these territories. “This goal can be achieved by diplomatic efforts… This is the central topic of today’s talks of the group in charge of […]
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… 9. Paul Goble: Window on Eurasia: Any Russian Protests Ahead Likely to Be About Economic Issues Rather than Political Ones, Experts Say.
10. US News and World Report: Joseph Kucera, Decoding Vladimir Putin’s Plan Many say Russia’s leader is trying to strengthen his country’s position in the world. …
[check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List JRL 2015-#1 :: Friday 2 January 2015 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 Russia 1. AP: Russians Optimistic for 2015 Despite It All. 2. […]
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(RFE/RL – January 2, 2015) Thousands have fled eastern Ukraine since the conflict erupted in April. Some have since returned. Other people chose to stay and tough it out. From teachers to pensioners to families with children, residents of rebel-held towns are struggling to get on with their lives amid the chaos and uncertainty. RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service continues to publish […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Vladimir Pribylovsky – December 31, 2014) Vladimir Pribylovsky is the president of the Moscow-based Panorama Information and Research Center and co-author of ‘The Age of Assassins: The Rise and Rise of Vladimir Putin’. Russia’s ruling structure bears the marks of authoritarianism, oligarchy, and three different presidents. Under Boris Yeltsin, rapacious despotism at the centre was accompanied by anarchical […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, January 1, 2015) Russian Railways announced yesterday that it will end some 220 local train routes this month, effectively cutting off the residents of many rural areas from access to medical and other services available only in oblast capitals. But the corporation insisted that Moscow is not to blame: local governments have […]
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MOSCOW. Jan 2 (Interfax) – Russian Justice Minister Alexander Konovalov has estimated the country’s prison population at over 600,000 people. “The data available as of December 1, 2014 indicate that 671,726 people are being held behind bars, including 562,172 convicted persons, as compared with 680,210 and 571,269, respectively, over the same period in 2013. It is also extremely important that […]
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(RIA Novosti – December 30, 2014) The head of the Russian Federation Council’s International Affairs Committee, Konstantin Kosachev, has called for the start of a dialogue on forming a European security architecture on new principles, without national egoism, RIA Novosti (part of the state-owned International News Agency Rossiya Segodnya) reported on 30 December. “It is in our common interests to […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – January 2, 2015) If the State Duma’s legislative initiatives may occasionally cause bewilderment or even outright laughter, lawmakers insist that they are in on the joke – with some adding that Russia’s parliament is not a place to make laws anyway, according to recent interviews. There has been no shortage of colorful […]
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(Interfax/RIA Novosti – December 30, 2014) Human-rights activists have greeted the conviction and sentencing of Aleksey Navalnyy and his brother for financial crimes with a mixture of anger and acceptance, with some denouncing it as politically-motivated hostage taking but others regarding it as justified. Aleksey and Oleg Navalnyy were found guilty of fraud and money laundering by Moscow’s Zamoskvoretskiy court […]
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(UN News Centre – un.org – Dec. 31, 2014) Amid continuing fighting and a deteriorating humanitarian situation in Ukraine, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) today announced it is launching an initiative aimed at ferrying aid to the country’s internally displaced persons (IDPs), as well as other vulnerable citizens trapped by the ongoing hostilities. The latest figures from the UN human rights office, OHCHR, […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Anna Arutunyan – December 31, 2014) Anna Arutunyan is an independent journalist and author of ‘The Putin Mystique.’ She lives in Moscow. I joined the crowds of people protesting against the sentence handed down to opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his brother Oleg on 30 December. Surrounded by Muscovites preparing for the long New Year’s holiday, we were […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Josh Rogin – December 31, 2014) Josh Rogin is a Bloomberg View columnist who writes about national security and foreign affairs. He has previously worked for the Daily Beast, Newsweek, Foreign Policy magazine, the Washington Post, Congressional Quarterly and Asahi Shimbun. President Barack Obama’s administration has been working behind the scenes for months to forge a new […]
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