(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Olga Tanas – July 22, 2015) For an economy that lives and dies by crude prices, the latest downturn in the world oil market means Russia’s recession may stretch into next year for the longest slump in two decades. Russia’s first economic slump since 2009 looked like it would plateau as oil gained 40 percent from […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Leonid Bershidsky – July 20, 2015) It’s rare that official representatives of the U.S. visit foreign parliaments to persuade lawmakers to vote a certain way on some piece of legislation. Yet last week, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland traveled to Kiev and did just that, as the Ukrainian parliament prepared to vote on amendments to […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Valery Kalnysh – July 20, 2015) Valery Kalnysh is deputy editor of Ukraine’s Radio Vesti. Last week’s shoot-out in the sleepy Transcarpathian town of Mukacheve in western Ukraine has had a serious impact on the country’s politics. In just one week, both the governor of Transcarpathia and top officials in the local security ministries have lost their jobs. […]
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(Paul Goble – Staunton, July 21, 2015) Even if such steps would bring peace, Ukrainians oppose giving special status to the Russian-controlled Donbas 56.1 percent to 26.4 percent and transforming their country into a federal state as a whole 59.1 percent to 21 percent, according to a new poll conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology. The agency surveyed 2044 […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Mikhail Molchanov – July 16, 2015) Mikhail A. Molchanov was born and raised in Ukraine, where he worked as Head of the Department of Public Administration at the National Academy of Public Administration under the President of Ukraine. He currently works as Professor of Political Science at St. Thomas University, Canada. He is the author of Political Culture […]
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(Interfax – July 21, 2015) Over half of all Ukrainians (56.8 percent) surveyed by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology believe the best solution to the military conflict in Donbass would be through further peace talks and a peaceful settlement on the basis of the Minsk agreements. The poll shows that 28.3 percent of the respondents believe that the territory […]
» Read moreJohnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#138 Tuesday 21 July 2015 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. JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php Support for JRL is provided in part by a […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Daria Litvinova – July 21, 2015) Foreigners that used to live and work in Russia are now fleeing en masse, the Federal Migration Service has revealed. Since January 2014, 41 percent of Spanish nationals, 38 percent of British nationals, 36 percent of U.S. nationals and 31 percent of German nationals have left Russia, the Noviye […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, July 20, 2015) Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia has expressed concern over attempts to politicize the notion of the Russian world. “Unfortunately, our opponents use the words ‘Russian world’ as a kind of bogey, as a scarecrow, as they allege that it is a kind of doctrine which serves exclusively the interests of the Russian […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Matthew Bodner, Anna DolgovJ – July 20, 2015) Russia’s military modernization drive is stalling this year under the weight of Western sanctions and the decay of the domestic defense industry, a deputy defense minister told President Vladimir Putin. The defense industry is struggling to keep to schedule on government contracts under a decade-long 20 trillion […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – July 21, 2015) One of Russia’s last independent newspapers, the Novaya Gazeta weekly, plans to appeal in court the second government warning it has received within a year – which crosses the threshold that allows the authorities to shut it down. Media watchdog Roskomnadzor issued the latest warning for an expletive that […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Maria Levitov – July 19, 2015) Which country would you invest in: a fast-growing economic powerhouse with a world-beating stock market or a tottering former superpower embroiled in a proxy war and heading for a recession? If at the start of 2015 you had chosen the second, Russia, you would be walking away with risk-adjusted returns […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Maria Naum – July 17, 2015) On Aug. 22, 1991 at the peak of euphoria over the failure of the coup against Mikhail Gorbachev, the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Soviet secret police, was pulled from its pedestal on Lubyanka Square. Since then, the square has remained empty as the public and authorities […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – July 17, 2015) The Russian military is failing to meet its plans for this year on re-equipping its armed forces with modernized weapons because of Western sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine and a decline of domestic industries, a deputy defense minister told President Vladimir Putin. Government defense contracts that have fallen […]
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Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Ariel Cohen addresses historical shifts in Russian agriculture, and what the future might hold. Russia could be a food superpower, given its vast soil and water resources. It still may become one, but the question is whether the food will be Western or Chinese. Since the beginning of the Ukrainian conflict, the Russian economy has […]
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Russia has adopted a law on the so-called “right to be forgotten,” which will require internet search engines to remove links to personal information at the request of citizens. Although State Duma deputies claim the legislation mirrors that of the European Union, industry players strongly oppose the law, predicting a series of lawsuits, while lawyers say that such a right […]
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Deutsche Welle covers governmental threats to charitable activities in Russia, including the saga of Dynasty and “foreign agent” labeling. … A law that calls those who receive funds from outside the country ‘foreign agents,’ an economic downturn that’s seen the market contract by 10 percent with no end in sight … sanctions that have seen the value of the ruble plummet to … anywhere […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Henry Kirby in London – July 14, 2015) The number of Ukrainians who consider themselves to be in food poverty has increased sixfold in the last two years, according to a study by international polling firm TNS Global. The survey asked 5,000 Ukrainians if they considered themselves wealthy enough to buy certain goods, ranging […]
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(RIA Novosti – July 15, 2015) About 900,000 Ukrainians have contacted Russia’s Federal Migration Service since the start of the conflict in southeast Ukraine requesting status allowing them to reside there permanently, RIA Novosti (part of the state-owned International News Agency Rossiya Segodnya) reported on 15 July. According to the FMS, just over a million citizens of southeast Ukraine have […]
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The Christian Science Monitor reports on Russia’s Baltic enclave Kaliningrad in the midst of stepped-up Russian and NATO military activity. If the tensions between Russia and the West should escalate into full-fledged confrontation, it is this former Prussian town – home to a huge military base in the heart of NATO country – that is going to be right at […]
» Read moreJohnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#137 Monday 20 July 2015 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. JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php Support for JRL is provided in part by […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – July 20, 2015) The government is failing to protect Russians who are falling into poverty at the fastest rate for nearly two decades, an economist said in an interview published Monday. The soaring inflation that followed Western sanctions against Moscow for its annexation of Crimea and meddling in eastern Ukraine is eroding […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Darya Lyubinskaya, RBTH – July 17, 2015) While bins for different kinds of garbage are a common sight in the U.S. and Europe, a system of separate waste collection has only recently begun to develop in Russia. Landfills, covering over 30,000 square miles in total, still represent a major environmental challenge for the […]
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Writing in The New York Times, former Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev addresses the future of Russian governance in the face of multiple economic, political and international challenges. The firmness of the West in protecting the sovereignty of Ukraine and restoring its territorial integrity is a prerequisite not only to rein in the Kremlin’s aggressive impulses, but also to engage […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – KYIV BLOG: Graham Stack in Kyiv – July 17, 2015) In his first interview since being fired as head of Ukraine’s state security service on June 16, Valentyn Nalivaichenko alleged that Ukraine’s leading political parties are behind huge flows of secret funds moving to and fro from offshore jurisdictions. He is only the highest […]
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(Interfax – July 17, 2015) An international group of investigators probing the crash of the Malaysian Boeing in eastern Ukraine have yet to find out whether the plane was shot down from the ground or from the air, according to the Dutch prosecutor general’s office. “We are investigating the scenario of the ground-to-air missile that downed MH17 and the other […]
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The London Times reports on U.S. efforts to bring greater financial pressure against the Putin regime over the conflict in Ukraine. The United States is ready to starve Russia of access to western credit if President Putin fails to meet demands for peace in Ukraine. The punitive measures against Mr Putin’s inner circle of oligarchs and their extensive business interests […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Brian Whitmore – July 16, 2015) It was the day Moscow’s dreams of empire cost European lives. It was the day the Kremlin lost its last vestiges of credibility. It was the day when it became impossible to continue even pretending that Vladimir Putin’s regime was anything close to respectable. It was the day the mask […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Chris Weafer of Macro-Advisory – July 17, 2015) It is axiomatic that every major sporting event has a distinctive theme tune and every financial crisis has at least one unique descriptive slogan or buzzword. In Russia today the competition for that catchphrase is between “localisation” and “the new norm”. A great deal has already […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – July 15, 2015) Poverty in Russia has reached “critical” levels, a deputy prime minister said, after government data showed a sharp increase in the number of people living below the poverty line. “Unfortunately, predictions are coming true: According to official statistics, the number of poor people has reached 22 million. This is critical,” Deputy Prime […]
» Read moreRussia’s surge in fortunes presents a contrast with the events of December, when stocks tumbled almost 9 percent and the ruble sank to a record, prompting the central bank to raise interest rates to the highest in more than a decade. That marked the peak of turmoil that had begun with Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March and crude oil’s […]
» Read moreJohnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#136 Friday 10 July 2015 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. JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php Support for JRL is provided in part by a […]
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The Kremlin is increasingly concerned about an Islamist uprising in one of the weak autocracies along its southern flank, all of which will be attending the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit today in Ufa, Russia
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Chris Weafer of Macro-Advisory – July 10, 2015) As we all know only too well, winters are long and cold in Russia while summers are relatively short but quite pleasant. Once Easter has passed, people start marking the calendar until they can throw off their winter armour and re-open their dachas. August is the […]
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According to a new Levada Center opinion poll, 70 percent of Russian citizens believe that Russia should not make any sanctions-related concessions, even though a third of the population has admitted that sanctions are a problem. However, despite these difficulties, Russians continue to back President Vladimir Putin, whose popularity rating has never been higher. Experts have several theories for why […]
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(Interfax – July 10, 2015) The process of peaceful settlement in Ukraine is having difficulties because Kyiv has no wish to hold talks with Donbas, but chances of success are higher than chances of failure, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a news conference in Ufa on July 10. “It does seem to me that to a certain extent the […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – bne IntelliNews – July 10, 2015) With a total GDP of $32 trillion and uniting 43% of the world’s population, the BRICS grouping of emerging powers took an assertive global stance at its annual summit in the Russian city of Ufa, as it unrolled plans to rival Western-dominated financial institutions. Marking the organisation’s seventh […]
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(Interfax – July 10, 2015) Less than a quarter of Russians believe sexual orientation is a person’s personal business and a majority oppose the legalization of same-sex marriage, a public opinion poll conducted by the All-Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) shows. The poll, which surveys 1,600 people living in 130 populated areas of 46 regions of Russia, was conducted […]
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(Interfax – July 10, 2015) At least 5 million Ukrainian citizens are in need of humanitarian aid, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on July 10. And 1.4 million of them are internally displaced persons. According to the information of the UN, the most vulnerable group is people living in the area of the so-called “contact […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, July 10, 2015) “Unfortunately, Russia is different from present-day Ukraine in many ways,” Lilya Shevtsova says; and consequently, if a Maidan does occur there, it is likely to be different as well, violent rather peaceful, destructive rather than constructive, and divisive rather than unifying. In the course of an interview this week […]
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