RUSSIA & UKRAINE – Johnson’s Russia List table of contents & links :: JRL 2019-#160 :: Tuesday, 1 October 2019

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Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2019-#160 :: Tuesday, 1 October 2019
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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1. Russia Beyond: Oleg Yegorov, Opinion: What is Russia’s biggest weakness? – rbth.com/lifestyle/331062-russias-biggest-weakness
2. Reuters: Russians drinking less, living longer, WHO says.
[WHO report: euro.who.int/en/health-topics/disease-prevention/alcohol-use/news/news/2019/10/alcohol-related-deaths-drop-in-russian-federation-due-to-strict-alcohol-control-measures,-new-report-says]
3. BBC: Russian economists propose ‘homebrew index’
5. Paul Goble: Russians Less Concerned about Economic Problems and More about Political Ones, Levada Center Poll Shows.
6. Christian Science Monitor: Fred Weir, A corner of Moscow fights to keep history from being built over, literally. While political speech is tightly controlled in Russia, there is increasing room for apol itical civil debate. That is what’s happening around the development of the old Badaevskiy Beer Plant site in Moscow.
7. Bloomberg: Leonid Bersidsky, Want to Insult Putin? It Will Cost You $462. Russia’s new lèse majesté law helps turn the president into a laughingstock.
8. Paul Goble: Russia Might Be Better Off if ‘Heavyweight’ Governors Returned, ‘Nezavisimaya Gazeta’ Says.
9. Moscow Times: Russia Invites Climate Activist Greta Thunberg to Speak in Parliament.
10. Carnegie Moscow Center: Alexandra Prokopenk, Last Chance Saloon: The Race to Grab Russia’s Reserves – carnegie.ru/commentary/79943
11. Bloomberg: Putin’s Costly Protectionism Experiment Is a Lesson for Trump.
12. Beyond the Kremlin: Mark Smith, Books and Terror. – beyondthekremlin.com/2019/10/01/books-and-terror/
13. The New Yorker: Masha Gessen, A Hypnotic but Contextless Portrait of Stalin’s Death and Its Aftermath.
14. Valdai Discussion Club: Annual Report: Time to Grow Up, or the Case for Anarchy.
[Annual report: http://valdaiclub.com/files/26629/]
15. Russian International Affairs Council: Russian Mamedov, What Russia Wants in Syria – russiancouncil.ru/en/analytics-and-comments/interview/what-russia-wants-in-syria/
16. Vesti.ru: 4 Years Later – Russian Intervention in Syria Saved Country, Surrounded Terrorists in Idlib! – vesti.ru/doc.html?id=3194599&cid=4441
17. Moskovsky Komsomolets: Russian daily comments Moscow’s increasing interest in Africa.
18. Russian Embassy in UK: Embassy Press Officer comments on new data regarding the Salisbury investigation. – rusemb.org.uk/fnapr/6921
19. Chatham House (UK): John Lough, Moscow Has Limited Options in Belarus. Leaked details of the latest negotiations between Moscow and Minsk on fleshing out their 20-year old Union State project suggest that Russia wants to place Belarus in a closer embrace without incorporating it into the Russian Federation.
20. Vesti.ru: Shakhnazarov: Russia Won’t Collapse Anytime Soon! EU and Ukraine Will Be Disappointed! – vesti.ru/doc.html?id=3194472&cid=4441
21. Twitter: Bryan McDonald: “Miss Ukraine” has caused a some upset by refusing to speak in Ukrainian during a TV interview. Instead, preferring to speak in Russian. Margarita Pasha said “I’ve the right to express my thoughts in whatever language I want or Ukraine’s law doesn’t allow me think in Russian?”
22. Interfax: Census begins in self-proclaimed Donbas republics.
23. Riddle: The Russia-Ukraine conflict: Hopeful signs of rapprochement have dissipated. Tatyana Stanovaya on why the recent Russian-Ukrainian rapprochement has reverted to more hostility. – ridl.io/en/the-russia-ukraine-conflict-hopeful-signs-of-rapprochement-have-dissipated/
24. New Cold War: Dmitriy Kovalevich, September update: Kiev is caught between two rocks and hard place. – newcoldwar.org/september-update-kiev-is-caught-between-two-rocks-and-hard-place/
25. The National Interest: Curt Mills, Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden: Who Gets Hurt the Most Over Ukraine? The brouhaha over Trump and Ukraine bears all the hallmarks of what observers of the American political theater have become accustomed to in recent years: hard conversations about what actually “foreign interference” entails, disturbing questions about how politicians make money outside of office, and the vulnerability of American democracy in the information age.
26. Wall Street Journal: Holman Jenkins, What the Press Doesn’t Know About Ukraine. Reporters will have to ask a lot more questions to understand the missing context of the Trump call.
27. Politico.com (January 17, 2017): Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire. Kiev officials are scrambling to make amends with the president-elect after quietly working to boost Clinton. (excerpt)
28. Foxnews.com: GOP lawmaker digs up audio of Schiff telling prank callers he would accept Trump dirt from Ukraine.
29. Arms Control Wonk: Michael Krepon, IMPEACHMENT AND ARMS CONTROL.
– armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1208123/impeachment-and-arms-control/
30. The Unz Review: Israel Shamir, The Biden Affair in the Ukraine – unz.com/ishamir/the-biden-affair-in-the-ukraine/
31. American Committee for East-West Accord: John Pepper, The Risk and Danger of Turning Nations Who Are Competitors into Existential Enemies.  – eastwestaccord.com/john-e-pepper-the-risk-and-danger-of-turning-nations-who-are-competitors-into-existential-enemies/

 

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