RUSSIA & UKRAINE – Johnson’s Russia List table of contents :: JRL 2016-124 :: Tuesday, 5 July 2016

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Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2016-#124
Tuesday, 5 July 2016
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. Moscow Times: Vladimir Frolov, A Modest Deal: Vladimir Putin’s New Détente.
2. Forbes.com: Doug Bandow, Turkey Makes Up With Russia: America Also Needs To End New Cold War With Moscow.
3. Consortiumnews.com: Ann Wright, Misunderstanding Russia and Russians.
4. Russia Direct: Yury Korgunyuk, The Belykh affair: Struggle against corruption or political maneuvering? There are a lot of unanswered questions in the corruption case involving Kirov governor Nikita Belykh, and that has many speculating about political intrigues involving the Kremlin.
5. Russia Beyond the Headlines: What is the Kremlin doing to make the parliamentary elections honest? With parliamentary elections due in September, the Kremlin is keen to avoid a repeat of the vote-rigging in 2011 that resulted in large-scale street protests, and has implemented several measures to ensure the process appears honest and transparent.
6. Moscow Times: Third of Russians Expect Rigged 2016 Duma Elections.
7. www.rt.com: Liberals Yabloko announce ‘alternative patriotism’ program for State Duma polls.
8. Paul Goble: After Initial ‘Painful Reaction,’ Russians ‘Quietly Adapting to Crisis,’ New Survey Finds.
9. Bloomberg: Here’s What Putin Wants From Central Bank as Elections Near.
10. Reuters: Prokhorov’s Onexim says not selling all Russian assets.
11. Russia Direct: Andrei Zolotov, What role does Russia play in European security? The question of how Russia fits into any new architecture of European security continues to be debated across Europe by organizations such as the OSCE, which recently held two important conferences to discuss this challenge.
12. Valdai Discussion Club: Oleg Barabanov, “PUTIN’S VICTORY”: RUSSIA AND BREXIT. The first and probably most important message that Russia saw in the Brexit vote was the normative leadership crisis in the EU. We are witnessing the birth of a new mainstream in Europe – anti-EU and anti-Brussels.
13. http://theduran.com: Alexander Mercouris, Putin in China: The Russian-Chinese Alliance. Putin’s meetings with the Chinese leadership in Beijing and Tashkent consolidate the most powerful alliance in the world today.
14. Carnegie Moscow Center/Vedomosti: Alexander Gabuev, Russia and China: Little Brother or Big Sister? Russian foreign policy is so fixated on the idea of equal partnership that it has lost sight of the pragmatic tasks of how to benefit from the partnership with China most effectively and with minimal risks.
15. www.rt.com: ‘Shanghai Cooperation Organization was never designed to compete with NATO’ – John Mearsheimer.
16. www.rt.com: ‘Biggest NATO reinforcement since Cold War’ to be focus of Warsaw summit – Stoltenberg.
17. Russia Insider/Izvestia: Dmitry Yevstafiev, NATO Has Turned Into a Dangerous Paper Tiger. The weak attack first!
18. Irrussianality: Paul Robinson, BALTIC CONUNDRUM.
19. Reuters: Russia’s Baltic outpost digs in for standoff with NATO. (Kaliningrad)
20. RFE/RL: Putin, Russian Security Council Discuss Baltic Airspace.
21. Russian Military Reform: Dmitry Gorenburg, More details on Baltic Fleet shakeup.
22. Russia Beyond the Headlines/Kommersant: Russian investigators accuse doping whistleblower Rodchenkov of drug deals. A criminal investigation of criminal cases against former head of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory Grigory Rodchenkov has alleged that he supplied banned substances from the U.S. and was therefore interested in destroying positive test samples collected from athletes.
23. TASS: Over 90 Russian athletes filed personal applications for Rio 2016.

UKRAINE

24. Bloomberg: Ukrainian Political Crisis Over for PM Ruling Out Snap Vote.
25. www.opendemocracy.net: MYKHAILO MINAKOV and TYMOFIY MYLOVANOV, Ukraine’s authoritarian signals. Recent unconstitutional legislation is smoothing the way for direct rule in Ukraine – and repeating past mistakes.
26. Facebook: Ivan Katchanovski, Maidan Shootings.
27. Awful Avalanche: Ukrainian Anesthesiologist Admits To Killing Patients in OR.
28. www.truth-out.org: Halyna Mokrushyna, Political Prisoners in Ukraine: A Crisis Ignored by Western Media.
29. Ukraine Today (Kyiv): Ukraine’s new police force celebrates its first anniversary amidst high confidence among Ukrainians.