RUSSIA & UKRAINE: JRL 2014-#235 table of contents with links :: Tuesday 11 November 2014

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Johnson’s Russia List
JRL 2014-#235 :: Tuesday 11 November 2014
E-Mail: davidjohnson@starpower.net
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Ukraine

1. Moscow Times: Cesar Chelala, Vodka Is Putin’s Worst Enemy.
2. Russia Beyond the Headlines: The tricks of the trade: Helping students understand the Russian language. RBTH has surveyed the best Russian language teachers abroad about how they teach their students the language. They compare nouns to cats, infinitives to flour and even take their students to the bathhouse to drink mead – all in order for the Russian language not to seem so strange.
3. Reuters: European Diplomats Seek Security Overhaul to End East-West Crisis.
4. Russia Direct: The Ukraine conflict: Easy to get into, but impossible to get out of. Alexei Venediktov, the head of Russia’s leading opposition radio station Echo of Moscow, discusses with Novaya Gazeta the motives that drive the Kremlin elite and offers his own take of what’s happening now with the Ukrainian crisis.
5. TASS: Russians more critical of street protests since government coup in Kiev.
6. Sputnik: New US Congress to Pursue Lethal Military Aid to Ukraine.
7. Business New Europe: Mark Adomanis, Russia’s economy obviously isn’t doing well but neither is it “collapsing.” The people dancing on Putin’s grave would do well to remember that through the first half of 2014 Russia’s “collapsing” economy performed about as well as the Eurozone’s.
8. Reuters: Ukraine’s currency plunges as ceasefire fears grow.
9. Voices of Ukraine: Invasion of Ukraine: Almost all the troops which stood near the Ukrainian border have entered Donbas.
10. www.thedailybeast.com: Anna Nemtsova, Ukraine Could Explode in the Next 48 Hours.
11. Interfax-Ukraine: Ukrainian prosecutor worried about volunteer battalions coming to Kiev with arms.
12. Human Rights in Ukraine: Disastrous Police Appointment. (re Kyiv police chief)
13. The Nation: Alec Luhn, Is Eastern Ukraine Becoming a People’s Republic or Puppet State? Some reform-minded leaders in the Donetsk People’s Republic want to create a socially oriented alternative to the oligarch-led government in Kiev-but will the Kremlin let them?
14. Vedomosti: Moscow shows restrained reaction to “elections” in Ukraine’s southeast – paper.
15. RIA Novosti: Russian envoy berates OSCE for doing “nothing” about Ukrainian troop movement.
16. http://eurasiangeopolitics.com: Edward Walker, Why a “frozen conflict” in eastern Ukraine is unlikely.
17. War on the Rocks: Dmitry Gorenburg, RUSSIA AND UKRAINE: NOT THE MILITARY BALANCE YOU THINK.
18. Valdai Discussion Club: David Lane, Soft Power, Dark Power and Academic Cooperation.
19. TASS: Political scientists say Putin plays key role in Russian “soft power”
20. www.rt.com: Kissinger warns of West’s ‘fatal mistake’ that may lead to new Cold War.
21. The Real News Network: Fall of Berlin Wall Began Eastern Expansion of NATO. Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern says the fall of the Berlin wall should have been an opportunity to create a constructive alliance with Russia, but instead, it became an opportunity to contain and isolate it.
22. RIA Novosti: NATO is planning to continue its military pressure on Russia and has been holding numerous exercises near Russia’s border.
23. www.foreignaffairs.com: Who Is at Fault in Ukraine? Foreign Affairs’ Brain Trust Weighs In.

Russia

24. Carnegie Moscow Center: Alexey Malashenko, Russia Divided.
25. Moscow Times: Kommersant Editor Steps Down Amid Rumors of Pressure From Above.
26. TASS: Russian Justice Ministry back-pedals on closure of rights organization.
27. www.rt.com: Russian political parties banned from making deals with foreigners or ‘agents’
28. Moscow Times: Russia’s RT Channel Threatened With Sanctions in Britain Over Bias.
29. RIA Novosti: Ofcom Attempting to Meddle With RT Editorial Policy: Editor-in-Chief.
30. Moscow Times: Cable TV Channel CNN Says It Will End Russian Broadcasts in 2015.
31. Interfax: CNN is allowed to broadcast on cable and satellite channels in Russia – ministry.
32. Interfax: Head of Kremlin rights council deplores CNN’s decision to quit Russia.
33. Reuters: Rouble’s slide resumes, testing Putin’s words and c.bank’s firepower.
34. Moscow Times: Chris Weafer, What’s Next for the Ruble?
35. Business New Europe: Russian oil could go into self-destruction mode on price fall.
36. www.rt.com: ‘Ruble dropped because of the speculative forces in the market.’ (interview with Pyotr Panov)
37. Reuters: Winners and losers from weak Russian rouble.
38. Sputnik: Energy, US at Core of Sino-Russian Partnership: Experts.
39. Moscow Times: China Gets Upper Hand in Gas Deals Amid Russia-West Tensions.
40. Sputnik: Russia-China Gas Deal Requires Moscow’s Reconciliation With US, EU.
41. Russia Beyond the Headlines: Press Digest: Putin signs gas deals with China’s Jinping at APEC summit.
42. Reuters: Obama and Putin are odd couple at Beijing summit.
43. Russia Beyond the Headlines: Can the liberal arts model thrive in Russia? When Christopher A. Stroop began teaching at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration in Moscow, he had no idea how receptive the institute or his students would be to a more liberal Western pedagogical approach. The results were revealing.
44. Jake Kipp: Churchill and War with USSR.
45. New York Times: Russian News Agency Expands Global Reach.
46. Alexei Ilyichev: re Valdai Discussion Club.
47. The Interpreter: Executive Summary. The Menace of Unreality: How the Kremlin Weaponizes Information, Culture and Money.
48. Paul Goble: Window on Eurasia: A Russian Maidan Could Take Place Outside of Moscow.
49. The New York Review of Books: Timothy Snyder, Putin’s New Nostalgia.