RUSSIA NEWS & INFORMATION – Johnson’s Russia List contents & links :: JRL 2020-#210 :: Tuesday, 24 November 2020

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Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2020-#210 :: Tuesday, 24 November 2020
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1. TASS: Coronavirus situation in Russia mostly under control, Kremlin says – tass.com/society/1227183
2. rt.com: Russian Sputnik V vaccine at least 95% effective say its creators, but vaccination won’t be mandatory, and Putin hasn’t had it yet – rt.com/russia/507660-sputnik-vaccine-effective-mandatory/
3. Meduza: 120,000 too many . Russia’s coronavirus mortality statistics at odds with spike in excess deaths during the pandemic, report says.
4. rt.com: Ben Aris, Commercial interests & Russia/West geopolitical struggle combine to make race for Covid-19 vaccines a new battleground – rt.com/russia/507672-covid19-vaccine-race-battleground/
5. Intellinews: Ben Aris, Putin increases personal income tax for the first time in two decades. The Russian tax police take their job very seriously. Russia’s President Putin has increasing income taxes for the first time in his 20 years in office
6. Interfax: IMF projects below-target inflation in Russia, recommends policy easing in coming months
7. Moscow Times: Pjotr Sauer and Jake Cordell, Is the WHO Too Soft on Russia? Critics fear Russia is using the WHO’s structural weaknesses to validate its coronavirus approach.
8. Oilprice.com: Russia’s Relentless Quest For Arctic Oil.
9. Russia International Affairs Council: Zhao Huasheng and Andrey Kortunov, The Coming Bipolarity and Its Implications: Views from China and Russia – russiancouncil.ru/en/analytics-and-comments/analytics/the-coming-bipolarity-and-its-implications-views-from-china-and-russia/
10. TASS: Izvestia: Biden announces first cabinet posts of his administration.
11. CNN.com: Matthew Rojansky and Michael Kimmage, Joe Biden’s oncoming headache over Vladimir Putin.
12. The Scrum: James Carden, “What’ll Biden do about Russia?” It’s possible he’ll restore us to sanity. But unlikely.
13. Russia Matters: Nikolas Gvosdev, A Biden Administration Poses Few Benefits for Russia.
14. Carnegie Moscow Center: Ivan Timofeev, U.S. Sanctions Under Biden: What to Expect. The relationship between Russia and the United States will remain one of fierce rivalry, and that paradigm is unlikely to change. New political crises are possible, and will bring with them more sanctions.
15. The National Interest: Michael Rubin, How to Revive Real Diplomacy Between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Even with the cease-fire, America and France may yet be able to find a solution through the Minsk Group. Michael Rubin is on the ground in Nagorno-Karabakh.
16. Awful Avalanche: Back To Karabakh, Nightmares And Illusions – Part I – awfulavalanche.wordpress.com/2020/11/24/back-to-karabakh-nightmares-and-illusions-part-i/
17. The National Interest: Mark Episkopos, Why America’s Belarus Strategy Backfired. Color revolution is itself a failed policy, driven by a misguided focus on enforcing liberal-democratic values rather than pursuing concrete strategic ends.
18. Intellinews: Robert Homans, Ukraine and the Biden Presidency. The Biden administration faces a tough nut to crack if it wants to help Ukraine, but what is on the agenda? He has personally been there six times and knows its problems probably better than any other US politician.
19. Dances With Bears: John Helmer, “HELLO BILL, THANK YOU BILL, GOODBYE BILL” – 20 YEARS OF TALKING WITH US PRESIDENTS HAVE BEEN A WASTE OF RUSSIAN BREATH – johnhelmer.net/hello-bill-thank-you-bill-goodbye-bill-20-years-of-talking-with-us-presidents-have-been-a-waste-of-russian-breath/print/
20. The Future of Freedom Foundation: Ted Galen Carpenter, The Continuing, Poisonous Russia Obsession.
21. Katrina vanden Heuvel: Steve Cohen’s Anecdote Lecture–December 6, 1983.