RUSSIA & UKRAINE – Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#183 :: Monday 21 September 2015

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Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#183
Monday – 21 September 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.
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RUSSIA

1. KWVT: An Interview with Andrei Kortunov.
2. Moscow Times: Fyodor Lukyanov, Can Russia and the West Cooperate in Syria?
3. Boston Globe: Stephen Kinder, Russia is not the enemy.
4. Russia Beyond the Headlines: Moscow makes the case for school reform. Five years into a process to consolidate and redistribute funding to schools, results are being seen, despite protests from parents and experts.
5. Moscow Times/Vedomosti: Nikolai Epple, Eat, Drink, Be Merry: Russia’s Spending Habits.
6. Russia Insider: Alexander Mercouris, My First-Hand Account of a Provincial Russian City (It’s Bustling!) Travelling along the Trans Siberian Railway from Moscow to Perm reveals a bustling modern city – totally different from the dark provincial Russia of western fancy.
7. http://gordonhahn.com: Gordon Hahn, Putin is Crazy and Sick: The Lows of American Rusology. (re RFE/RL’s Brian Whitmore)
8. Moskovskiy Komsomolets: Russian PM Medvedev’s character, achievements, prospects assessed. (Mikhail Rostovskiy)
9. Moscow Times: Reid Nelson, Russia’s Political Opposition Must Get Its Act Together.
10. AP: Russian opposition draws several thousand to anti-Putin protest on Moscow’s outskirts.
11. www.russia-insider.com: Alexander Mercouris, Face It: Liberals in Russia Are Just a Fringe. Local and regional elections in Russia on Sunday show a vigorous political life. It’s just the liberals have no part in it
12. Moskovskiy Komsomolets: Opposition politician berates Russian “power vertical.” (Gennadiy Gudkov)
13. Carnegie Moscow Center: Andrei Kolesnikov, Problem-2018 or Putin’s Dilemma.
14. The Unz Review: Anatoly Karlin, Egor Prosvirnin Gets Shoahed. Is Novorossiya Next?
15. Reuters: Russia for first time acknowledges low oil prices may hit output.
16. Moscow Times: Russia to Ban Genetically Modified Organisms in Food Production.
17. Forbes.com: Kenneth Rapoza, Barclays Thinks Russia May Be Hitting Bottom.
18. www.russia-insider.com: Alexander Mercouris, Russia’s Recession Bottoms Out. Statistics point to the worst being over, with signs of recovery starting to grow.
19. RFE/RL: Patron Saint Of Russian Journalism Despairs Over Putin’s Television. (Yasen Zasursky)
20. www.rt.com: ‘Extremism’: Russia reviews code for rehabilitation of Stalinist crimes.
21. New York Times: Russian Project Honors Stalin’s Victims and Stirs Talk on Brutal Past.
22. TASS: Republican presidential TV debates: attitude to Russia unfriendly, but with silver lining.
23. Russia Direct: Dmitry Polikanov, What the closure of the American Center means for Russia. Concerns about the closing of the American Center in Moscow appear to be overblown. Russia is still open to new ideas and the constructive role that can be played by soft power.
24. AP: Russians with Western ties increasingly branded ‘traitors’.
25. www.rt.com: Pentagon updates plans for war with ‘potentially aggressive’ Russia – media.
26. Washington Times: Edward Lozansky, Putin is coming to New York – what will he say It is not in either nation’s interest to let relations deteriorate.
27. Russia Beyond the Headlines: Putin calls on CSTO to fight terrorist threat in Central Asia. The Collective Security Treaty Organization Summit, which took place in the Tajik capital of Dushanbe on Sept. 14-15, was chiefly devoted to countering the threat of Islamist terrorism in Central Asia. However, Russian experts believe that corruption and poverty are a greater threat to the region than terrorism.
28. Interfax: Half of Russians back independence of South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transdniestria.
29. Gazeta.ru: Russian website interviews veteran diplomat on Syria developments, forecasts. (Aleksandr Aksenenok)
30. Real News Network: Is the U.S. Secretly Welcoming Increased Russian Syria Involvement? Col. Lawrence Wilkerson tells Paul Jay that cooperation with Russia and Iran is the only way to resolve the situation, but U.S. policy is catering to Saudi Arabian, Turkish and Israeli ambitions.
31. www.rt.com: Danielle Ryan, Putin’s consistency on Syria has Washington fuming.
32. New York Times editorial: Mr. Putin’s Mixed Messages on Syria.
33. Reuters: Peter Apps, When Vladimir Putin looks in the mirror, does he see Syria’s Assad?
34. New York Times: Ed Husain, No Peace in Syria Without Working With Russia.

UKRAINE

35. The Independent (UK): Mary Dejevsky, Despite Putin’s threats, war seems a long way off in Kiev now. The mood has changed, as have expectations of the west – and perhaps being out of the international limelight did the Ukrainians some good.
36. Foreign Affairs book review: Robert Legvold, Conflict in Ukraine: The Unwinding of the Post–Cold War Order by Rajan Menon and Eugene B. Rumer
37. Interfax-Ukraine: Ukrainian army’s loses total 1,915 people dead, 271 missing.
38. Reuters: In first Ukraine trip, NATO chief tries balancing act on Russia.
39. Facebook: Ivan Katchanovski, Re Maidan and Odesa massacres.
40. Sputnik: Ukraine Stops Food Supply to Crimea.
41. www.equaltimes.org: Objections mount over Ukraine’s draft labour code.
42. Business New Europe: ‘Team Georgia’ graftbusters open container of worms in Odesa clean-up.
43. Interfax-Ukraine: Biden denies media reports on warning Ukrainian authorities, believes leadership is making progress against corruption.
44. The Daily Mail (UK): Peter Hitchens, If Vladimir Putin had Done This, There’d Have Been More Fuss.
45. Kyiv Post: Shuster’s political show cut off air, raising free-speech concerns once more.
46. www.rt.com: Ofcom fingers RT for using Kiev’s words to make it look bad.
47. Institute of Modern Russia: The Interpreter Report Spurs Fervent Discussion in Washington, D.C.