RUSSIA NEWS & INFORMATION – Johnson’s Russia List contents & links :: JRL 2021-#250 :: Thursday, 23 December 2021
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Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2021-#250 :: Thursday, 23 December 2021
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1. Kremlin.ru: Vladimir Putin’s annual news conference – en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/67438
2. Moscow Times: Putin’s End-of-Year Press Conference: What He Discussed.
3. TASS: West thinks Russia is too big even after USSR’s collapse, Putin says – tass.com/politics/1380043
4. Reuters: Putin on NATO, Ukraine, gas, COVID and the Russian economy.
5. Bloomberg: Putin Hails Central Bank for Averting Turkish-Style Crisis.
6. Financial Times: Max Seddon, Moscow Diary: What the success of a US soap says about modern Russia. As tensions mount over Russia’s rhetoric over Ukraine, the capital is seeing a flowering of culture.
7. rt.com: Russia’s top challenges for 2022 named by key Putin ally – rt.com/russia/543871-volodin-greatest-challenges-2022/
8. Wall Street Journal: Putin Denies Troop Buildup Near Ukraine Means Russia Wants Conflict. Leader accuses West of stoking anti-Russian sentiment in neighboring nation, warns against NATO expansion.
9. New York Times: Putin Demands Quick Answers on Russian Security Concerns. At a traditional year-end news conference, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia blamed the West for talk of “war, war, war,” but did not markedly escalate tensions further.
10. rt.com: Russia’s battles on world stage laid bare by Foreign Minister in RT interview.
11. Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s interview with RT television channel, Moscow, December 22, 2021.
12. The National Interest: Doc Zakheim, Is a War Over Ukraine Inevitable? If Putin prefers to continue the force buildup on Ukraine’s border, he is likely to provoke an increasingly tough NATO response both economically and militarily.
13. strategic-culture.org: Brian Cloughley, Crimea Is Calm, Which Upsets Nato Because It Prefers Confrontation. Crimea continues to be calm and any move that could result in acceptance of the peaceful status quo will be either ignored or resisted.
14. rt.com: Paul Robinson, Ukraine’s slippery slope.
15. Antiwar.com: Ted Snider, NATO, Russia and the Other Broken Promise.
16. Perspective on Politics: Peter Rutland, Understanding Putin’s Russia and the Struggle over Ukraine. (excerpt)
17. Asia Times: Swaran Singh, Explaining Putin’s efforts to broker peace between India, China. A trilateral Russia-India-China summit could well be the first major international event of 2022.
18. Russian International Affairs Council: Andrey Kortunov, US’ Hyperbolic China, Russia, Iran Statements Show Outdated Foreign Policy.
19. Responsible Statecraft: Anatol Lieven, Ted Cruz’s temper tantrum pays off. But for whom? The GOP senator has swapped his hold on Biden’s ambassadors for a vote on more sanctions for Russia over Nord Stream 2.
20. Antiwar.com: Natylie Baldwin, Review of There is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the 21st Century by Fiona Hill, Mariner Books; 2021.
21. National Security Archive: The End of the Soviet Union 1991. U.S. Policy to Gorbachev: “We Support the Center and You Personally”. New Documents Include USSR State Council Transcripts, Highest-Level Memcons.
22. Institute for the Study of War: [PDF] PUTIN’S LIKELY COURSE OF ACTION IN UKRAINE – PART 1. Strategic Misdirection: An Alternate Framework for Understanding Russia’s Play in Ukraine.
23. Wall Street Journal: John Deni, The Strategic Case for Risking War in Ukraine. An invasion would be a diplomatic, economic and military mistake for Putin. Let him make it if he must.
24. SpyTalk: Russian Invasion of Ukraine is ‘Almost Certain,’ Cyber Expert Says. Putin not bluffing, argues noted cyber and statecraft expert Dmitri Alperovitch, whose Crowdstrike firm uncovered Moscow’s 2016 DNC hack.
25. Washington Post editorial: On invading Ukraine, Putin approaches a point of no return.
