RUSSIA & UKRAINE – Johnson’s Russia List table of contents & links :: JRL 2019-#28 :: Friday, 22 February 2019

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Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2019-#28 :: Friday, 22 February 2019
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1. Russia Beyond: Why do Russians benefit from suffering? [rbth.com/lifestyle/330011-russian-suffering]
2. Christian Science Monitor: Fred Weir, When Putin goes, will Putinism persist? Russians debate. When the Kremlin’s ex-chief ideologist speaks, people listen. Last week, he said that the governmental structure that Putin built would outlive the man who built it. Now Russians are arguing over what “Putinism” is.
3. Novaya Gazeta: Kirill Martynov: Surkov’s century. President’s aide allots 100 years to ‘Putin’s long-term state’. Putin ‘has not read’ his treatise
4. RFE/RL: Five Takeaways From Putin’s State-Of-The-Nation Address.
5. Moscow Times: Tatyana Stanovaya, The Kremlin Hierarchy Is Fast Decaying. A scramble of all against all will define Putin’s last presidential term.
6. Financial Times editorial: Putin needs more than spending to lift ratings. Five years after Crimea was annexed, Russian discontent is rumbling.
7. www.raamoprusland.nl: Can Tsar Vladimir Morph into Uncle Vova? Putin’s annual address to parliament and the people differed from last year’s. In spite of an obligatory threat to target the US with missiles, the speech was meant to appease his angry people. So Putin morphed from Tsar Vladimir to Uncle Vova. According to our columnist Mark Galeotti that will not be enough. There are no more quick fixes and easy answers, but Putin budges to act decisively.
8. Asia Times: Pepe Escobar, Putin rattles sabre as nuclear pact collapses. Russian President warns West that deploying missile launchers in Europe could ignite ‘tit for tat’ response.
9. The Unz Review: Anatoly Karlin, Powerful Atlantic Council Twitter Thread on Russians Fleeing Putler. [unz.com/akarlin/powerful-atlantic-council-twitter-thread-on-russians-fleeing-putler/]
10. Moscow Times: Russia’s Black Market Totaled 20% of GDP in 2018 – Reports.
11. Intellinews.com: Ben Aris, Russia gets a second female billionaire.
12. Meduza: Introverted, daring, and very rich. Meet Tatyana Bakalchuk, half of Russia’s woman-billionaire population.
13. Interfax: Spokesman suggests Putin unhappy with prosecution of businesspeople.
14. Carnegie Moscow Center: Andrey Movchan, No Country for Investors: Russia’s Latest Shock Arrests
15. Moscow Times: Evan Gershkovich, As Putin Shifts Focus to Economy, a Key Foreign Investor Sits in Prison. Michael Calvey, an American businessman indicted on fraud charges, has helped bolster Russia’s economy for 25 years. Now the joke’s on him.
16. The Unz Review: Anatoly Karlin, 96% of Kuril Islanders Oppose Joining Japan. [unz.com/akarlin/96-of-kuril-islanders-oppose-joining-japan/]
17. www.rt.com: ‘Sign of good will’: US spy plane carries out 1st observation flights over Russia in 2 years.
18. Foreign Policy: Sarah Bidgood, Trump Accidentally Just Triggered Global Nuclear Proliferation. Before the United States killed it, the INF Treaty didn’t just stem the arms race with Russia-it stopped the spread of nuclear weapons around the world.
19. NYU Jordan Center: Eliot Borenstein, Neoliberalism and Other Dirty Words (Russia’s Alien Nations)
20. Counterpunch.org: Ramzy Baroud, Russian Mediation: The Critical Messages of the Hamas-Fatah Talks in Moscow. [counterpunch.org/2019/02/22/russian-mediation-the-critical-messages-of-the-hamas-fatah-talks-in-moscow/]
21. Asia Times: Belarus’ tough choice: Russian oil or sovereignty. Could Minsk be swallowed by Moscow? A national merger is, in fact, on the table, but it looks unlikely.
22. Intellinews.com: Tymoshenko out of Ukraine top-two presidential candidates, new poll says.
23. Awful Avalanche: Why A Belorussian Jew Doesn’t Want You To See T-34.
24. www.rt.com: 5 stages of Russiagate grief: Dems and the media prepare for ‘life without Mueller’