“… If the only American media you consumed was the New York Times, you’d come to the inevitable conclusions that a) Americans are united in their obsessive hatred of their president, and b) it’s all the fault of those horrible Russians who colluded with Trump to get him elected. But judging by the bestseller list, it’s not the New York […]
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“… [N]ew sanctions imposed on Russia … [feature] a ban on export of anything with a potential military use, announced by the State Department …. Putin’s Russia is asking for punishment when his agents use a chemical weapon against a double agent, brazenly meddle in Western elections, cheat in international sports, ruthlessly ravage Ukrainian territory or violate human rights. … […]
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“… Imagine that U.S. military leaders spent most of 1941 warning President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his Democratic Party of a coming Pearl Harbor attack. Then imagine history’s harsh judgment against FDR’s party had it ignored those concerns, voted against efforts to fortify the Pacific fleet and plotted the firing of generals who were working to expose the looming Japanese […]
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“… On Friday, PM Dmitry Medvedev called potential new US sanctions ‘economic war,’ noting that Russia must respond with economic, political, and if necessary, other methods. Today, Russian … [commentators] discuss Moscow’s options. …”
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To inquire about a subscription to the full Johnson’s Russia List e-mail newsletter, e-mail David Johnson at davidjohnson@starpower.net [check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2018-#148 Monday, 13 August 2018 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Ilya Budraitskis – August 8, 2018 – opendemocracy.net/od-russia/ilya-budraitskis/how-conservative-is-the-russian-regime – text originally commissioned for Slovak magazine “Kapital,” 8/2018 – translated by Thomas H. Campbell.) Ilya Budraitskis is Moscow-based historian and political writer. He is current member of editorial board of Moscow Art Magazine, Openleft.ru and LeftEast. The atmosphere of Russia’s recent presidential election and Vladimir Putin’s predictable victory seemingly […]
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“[The author visits] ….Zaryadye Park, Moscow’s first new green space in 50 years, designed by … American architects Diller Scofidio & Renfro … one of the most ambitious and expensive architectural projects in Russia in decades. … [with] numerous buildings on [a] 35-acre site … tucked under curving, plant and tree-filled slopes. Each … represents an aspect of Russia’s varied […]
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(Article ©2018 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – – Bruce Pannier – August 9, 2018- also appeared at rferl.org/a/qishloq-ovozi-landmark-caspian-agreement–and-what-it-resolves/29424824.html) It has taken more than 20 years. But on August 12, the leaders of Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan will meet in the Kazakh port city of Aqtau, reportedly to sign a new convention on the legal status […]
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“… But new developments have raised the possibility of fresh challenges for U.S. companies in Russia. The United States on Wednesday announced it would impose fresh sanctions on Russia after Washington determined Moscow had used a nerve agent against a former Russian double agent, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter, Yulia, in Britain. Russia on Thursday condemned the new round of […]
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To inquire about a subscription to the full Johnson’s Russia List e-mail newsletter, e-mail David Johnson at davidjohnson@starpower.net [check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2018-#147 Friday, 10 August 2018 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s […]
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(Russia Matters – russiamatters.org – Simon Saradzhyan – August 7, 2018) Simon Saradzhyan is the founding director of the Russia Matters Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. [Text with links and chart russiamatters.org/analysis/when-does-vladimir-putins-russia-send-troops] This month marks the tenth anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s first military intervention abroad, in Georgia. Since then there have been two […]
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“A day before Facebook announced that it had discovered and disabled a propaganda campaign designed to sow dissension among U.S. voters, it exclusively shared some of the suspicious pages with an online forensics team so busy it hasn’t put a nameplate on the door. The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab is based in a 12-foot-by-12-foot office in the Washington, […]
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To inquire about a subscription to the full Johnson’s Russia List e-mail newsletter, e-mail David Johnson at davidjohnson@starpower.net [check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2018-#146 Thursday, 9 August 2018 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s […]
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“… Russia’s military intelligence agency, known as the GRU, is getting blamed for all sorts of things …. Robert Mueller indicted 12 GRU officers for hacking into computers of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The GRU allegedly was behind the recent poisonings of four people in Britain, including former GRU officer Sergei Skripal, who survived, and a woman […]
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“Like many other heads of state, I had planned to attend the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. I canceled my trip after Russian-backed separatists began firing on Georgian positions in the breakaway territory of South Ossetia. … Long before its conventional assault on Georgia, Russia openly backed separatist militants, launched cyberattacks, and used disinformation to meddle in the internal affairs […]
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To inquire about a subscription to the full Johnson’s Russia List e-mail newsletter, e-mail David Johnson at davidjohnson@starpower.net [check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2018-#145 Wednesday, 8 August 2018 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s […]
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“… Ten years ago this week … Putin struck one of the first major blows when he sent Russian forces into South Ossetia in neighboring Georgia in support of Russian-backed separatists. The Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, fearing a full-blown invasion, ordered his troops to attack, thus springing Putin’s trap. Using the Georgian attack as a pretext, Putin launched that full-blown […]
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“… Russian companies routinely face harassment from law-enforcement officials seeking to extort money or expropriate businesses, according to business owners, lawyers and activists. One in six Russian business owners is facing criminal prosecution, according to [a Kremlin-launched agency]. … Putin’s authoritarian rule relies on security officials and political heavyweights who use their authority not only to squash political opponents but […]
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(PONARS Eurasia – Ivan Kurilla, Sergey Ivanov, Adrian Selin – August 5, 2018 – ponarseurasia.org/point-counter/russia-my-history-as-ideological-tool) The emergence of permanent history parks in Russia can be compared to the advent of “Institutes of National Memory” that operate in a number of former Soviet and Central European states. The vision of history they present is highly politically engaged. History as an Ideological […]
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“… A British security source … [said] the nerve agent attack on the former double agent Sergei Skripal was also ordered by the [GRU] intelligence agency. The British government is poised to submit an extradition request to Moscow for two Russians suspected of carrying out the Salisbury attack that left one person dead and three injured, including Skripal and his […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – August 7, 2018) Russia will be able to weather new sanctions from the United States following a series of steps it took to reduce its vulnerability to future penalties, said Moody’s analyst Kristin Lindow. The U.S. levied sanctions against businesses held by Kremlin-linked oligarchs in April as punishment for alleged interference in the 2016 presidential […]
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(Government.ru/Kommersant – August 7, 2018) Question: Mr Medvedev, the August 2008 war seemed unavoidable even before it started. Did you have the same feeling? Dmitry Medvedev: No, it was not at all unavoidable. And I still think that there would not have been a war if not for the irresponsible, immoral and criminal actions of Saakashvili and his minions. Indeed, […]
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To inquire about a subscription to the full Johnson’s Russia List e-mail newsletter, e-mail David Johnson at davidjohnson@starpower.net [check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2018-#143 Tuesday, 7 August 2018 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s […]
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(Article ©2018 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – Yelizaveta Mayetnaya, Robert Coalson – August 5, 2018 [Text with links and graphics: rferl.org/a/not-so-united-russia-ruling-party-rattled-by-pension-reform-crisis/29413547.html] Speaking to a riled-up crowd at a July 28 protest against the Russian government’s deeply unpopular proposal to raise retirement ages in Vologda, angry pensioner Nikolai Zharavin didn’t mince words as to who was to […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, August 4, 2018) According to a new Levada Center poll, 68 percent of Russians do not want to live in “‘a besieged fortress’ and fight with the West but instead want to a rapprochement with the West, a change in attitudes with more far-reaching consequences than the declining popular ratings of Vladimir […]
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MOSCOW. Aug 6 (Interfax) – Twenty sites in Russia where Jews were executed and buried during the war will be memorialized as part of the next stage of the Return Dignity program this year. Monuments to Holocaust victims will be built in cities and villages in the Bryansk, Volgograd, Oryol, Ryazan, Smolensk, and Tula regions, the Stavropol Territory and the […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, August 2, 2018) Between 1998 and 2016, the share of Russians saying they are religious increased from 63 to 74 percent, with increases among young less and those among less educated more, according to a new study by Yana Roshina of the Higher School of Economics (hse.ru/data/2018/06/21/1152561475Вестник РМЭЗ НИУ ВШЭ 2018.pdf; summarized […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alina Shubina – August 6, 2018) If you’ve ever watched “Doctor Who” or “Back to the Future” and dreamed of hopping in your own time machine and seeing the world of centuries past, then, starting August 10, Moscow is the place to be. For almost two weeks, the city will be home to the “Times […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – August 6, 2018) On the 10th anniversary of the Russia-Georgia war, more Russians blame Georgia than leadership in Moscow for the conflict, according to an independent Levada Center poll published Monday. The war, which began over the breakaway region of South Ossetia on Aug. 8, 2008 and ended five days later, was Russia’s biggest combat […]
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MOSCOW. Aug 6 (Interfax) – The mutual lifting of sanctions against legislators could be a first step toward the revision of the entire set of sanctions in place between Russia and the United States, State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Leonid Slutsky said. “We understand that for today, the lifting of sanctions today is a utopian idea, but, just as […]
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To inquire about a subscription to the full Johnson’s Russia List e-mail newsletter, e-mail David Johnson at davidjohnson@starpower.net [check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2018-#143 Monday, 6 August 2018 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s […]
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“The number of Russians liking the U.S. has doubled over the past two months, a poll by the independent public research organisation Levada Centre suggests. Forty-two per cent of those polled in the firm’s July survey said they had a ‘positive’ attitude towards the U.S., as opposed to 20 per cent of those asked about the same issue in May. […]
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(Russia Matters – russiamatters.org – August 2, 2018 – Simon Saradzhyan – russiamatters.org/blog/will-pension-protests-take-down-putin) Simon Saradzhyan is the founding director of the Russia Matters Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs This summer’s polls have not been kind to Vladimir Putin and for good reason. The Russian authorities’ drive to raise the country’s pension age has […]
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“A proposed ‘crushing’ bipartisan bill introduced by the … Senate … will not be debated until … autumn and many … harsh terms could be considerably watered down, Luis Saenz, … co-head of equities at BCS Global Markets said …. [The] bill … targets Russian debt and energy companies, designed to punish Russia for interfering in the U.S. presidential election, […]
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“… discontent over controversial pension reform … keeps on snowballing … the readiness of Russians for mass protests over economic policies has risen from a record low to top 40% for the first time since 2009 …. approval indicators for the government have fallen across the board. Putin’s … personal popularity … underpin[g] the stability of the Russian political system, […]
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To inquire about a subscription to the full Johnson’s Russia List e-mail newsletter, e-mail David Johnson at davidjohnson@starpower.net [check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2018-#142 Friday, 3 August 2018 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s […]
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More Russians are willing to participate in economic and political protests now than in the past two decades, according to a new survey released by the independent Levada Center pollster. Public discontent has spread throughout Russia this summer after the government announced plans to raise the retirement age. The United Russia ruling party saw its approval ratings plummet to seven-year […]
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“… Putin’s approval rating has hit a five-year low of 67 per cent, the latest survey by independent pollster Levada Centre suggests [published July 31]. The last time the Russian leader’s rating was below 70 per cent was in July 2013 [when it hit] 65 per cent …. Putin’s approval rating dropped 12 percentage points since … May. … Medvedev’s […]
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“… In the long term, China represents the larger threat to U.S. interests, as a result of its vast economic and military potential. Yet in the near term … Putin has proved himself to be the more dangerous and disruptive actor. The Russian leader has launched three major military interventions over the last decade – in Georgia, Ukraine and Syria […]
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“… Ukraine has improved its ranking on Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index since 2013 … [but] still shares 130th place (out of 180 …) with Sierra Leone and Myanmar. Many other former Soviet republics, including … authoritarian Belarus, are far ahead … Russia is just one point behind. One of the biggest reform efforts was the creation in 2015 of […]
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“Although the FBI’s case officially began July 31, 2016, there had been investigative activity before that …. John Brennan’s CIA might have directed activity in Britain … [problematic considering] longstanding agreements that the U.S. will not conduct intelligence operations there. It would explain why the FBI continues to stonewall Congress … Further, what we know about the case’s origin does […]
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“Mariia Butina wasn’t hiding. … The very brazenness of this makes some people doubt that it could really be part of an intelligence operation, especially one executed by Russia. After all, we’ve heard stories about Cold War KGB capers involving clandestine meetings and surreptitious missions. Back then, intelligence officers skulked quietly in government circles, hoping to use any number of […]
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To inquire about a subscription to the full Johnson’s Russia List e-mail newsletter, e-mail David Johnson at davidjohnson@starpower.net [check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2018-#141 Wednesday, 1 August 2018 A project sponsored through the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s […]
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