RUSSIA & UKRAINE: JRL 2015-#1 table of contents with links :: Friday 2 January 2015

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Johnson’s Russia List
JRL 2015-#1 :: Friday 2 January 2015
E-Mail: davidjohnson@starpower.net
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Russia

1. AP: Russians Optimistic for 2015 Despite It All.
2. Reuters: Russia oil output hits post-Soviet high, small firms help.
3. Counterpunch.org: Norman Pollack, Oh, Those Nasty Russians.
4. Kremlin.ru: New Year Address to the Nation.
5. Bloomberg: Josh Rogin, Inside Obama’s Secret Outreach to Russia.
6. Sputnik: Russia Sees 15 Years Since Yeltsin’s Handover of Power to Putin.
7. Sputnik: Yeltsin’s Legacy Still Troubles Russians 15 Years Later: Poll.
8. Russia Beyond the Headlines: Everything you wanted to know about the Dec. 30 rally in support of Navalny.
9. Interfax/RIA Novosti: Russian human-rights figures divided over Navalnyy sentence.
10. www.opendemocracy.net: Anna Arutunyan, From our own correspondent in Moscow. There have been protests in the capital. Could Moscow really go the way of Kyiv– bring down the president and install a less authoritarian government?
11. Moscow Times: Why Do They Do It? A Glimpse Into the Russian Lawmaker Psyche.
12. Interfax: Justice minister puts Russia’s prison population at 600,000.
13. Paul Goble: Window on Eurasia: The Train Won’t Stop Here Anymore – the Sad Fate of Russian Regions.
14. BBC: Steve Rosenberg, Have 15 years of power gone to Putin’s head?
15. The International New York Times: Maxim Trudolyubov, Russia’s Lost Time.
16. The Daily Telegraph (UK): Alexander Clarke, So what should Vladimir Putin’s New Year’s Resolutions be? The Big Question: In the wake of President Putin’s New Year message to world leaders, we suggest what he could have been thinking.
17. www.opendemocracy.net: Vladimir Pribylovsky, Power struggles inside the Kremlin. A behind-the-scenes look at power struggles inside the Kremlin reveals potential scenarios for the future. And a possible new president.
18. www.rt.com: Robert Bridge, 2014: The year Russia-bashing got ugly – and dangerous.
19. New York Times editorial: A Vital Nuclear Agreement, at Risk.
20. Sputnik: US, NATO Unwilling to Raise Tensions With Russia: Pentagon.
21. Russia Direct: How comedians covered US-Russia relations in 2014. The current state of bilateral relations between Russia and the U.S. may be nothing to laugh about, but somehow throughout the year, comedians from the two nations always found a way to brighten the mood.
22. Spiked: Frank Furedi, THE YEAR THE CULTURE WARS WENT GLOBAL. Turning geopolitics into a battlefield over values is a really bad idea.
23. Russia Beyond the Headlines: Choosing the past over the present: The enduring popularity of Soviet films.
24. Wall Street Journal: “Leviathan” Review: Modern Russian Mastery on a Grand Scale. Vast northern vistas provide the setting for a classic confrontation between a little guy and an implacably corrupt government.
25. Russia’s Lavrov gives interview to state TV December 25.

Ukraine

26. Kyiv Post: President Petro Poroshenko’s New Year address to the nation.
27. Fort Russ: Yushchenko: More than Half of Ukrainians Will Not Support Joining NATO or a Single Official Language.
28. Reuters: Electricity From Russia to Help Keep Ukraine’s Holiday Lights On.
29. AFP: Ukraine economy shrank 7.5% in ‘worst year since WWII’
30. Kyiv Post: Torches burn, but Ukraine’s nationalism dims.
31. Washington Post: Adrian Karatnycky, Warlords and armed groups threaten Ukraine’s rebuilding.
32. Los Angeles Times: Lev Golinkin, Kiev’s brutal strategy in eastern Ukraine.
33. UN News Centre: Ukraine: UN kicks-off campaign to reach displaced persons with humanitarian aid.
34. RFR/RL: Letters From Donbas, Part 2: ‘Do You Understand What Is Going On Here?’
35. Sputnik: Filtering of Events Makes West Unaware of Neo-Nazism in Kiev: Spokesperson.
36. Kyiv Post: Ukraine’s army of homeless people tries to survive on streets.
37. RIA Novosti: Russian senator calls for new security architecture in Europe.
38. Fort Russ: Ukrainian Deserter to Novorossia: “Only a Third of Ukrainian Army Wants to Fight, and They are From Western Ukraine”
39. In Moscow’s Shadows: Mark Galeotti, A Ukraine-Russia peace deal: Crimea must have a cost.