(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – January 21, 2015) New year, new you: An expression that has taken on a special meaning for those living in Russia, where a plethora of new laws – many with a direct impact on the daily lives of citizens and residents – entered into effect on Jan. 1. The Moscow Times has […]
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GORKI. Jan 20 (Interfax) – Agreements to ship electricity to Crimea and Ukraine are beneficial to both parties, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at a meeting with Energy Minister Alexander Novak and Gazprom (MOEX: GAZP) CEO Alexei Miller. He also said that work must continue in this area. “I think that this is a form of support, in this […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – bne IntelliNews – January 5, 2015) Members: Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia Prospective member: Armenia Potential members: Kyrgyzstan (likely), Tajikistan (unlikely) Population: 173mn (Russia, including Crimea, 146mn; Kazakhstan, 17mn; Belarus, 10mn) Total GDP: $2.7tn Share of world gas reserves: 20% Share of world oil reserves: 15% On January 1, the Eurasian Economic Union Treaty governing what […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Volodymyr Verbyany and Kateryna Choursina – December 30, 2014) Ukraine may have to leave the fate of Crimea to future generations, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said, a day after the president said the country can’t afford to take back its rebel-held areas by force. The government in Kiev and its allies have condemned the March annexation […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – December 11, 2014) Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev struck an optimistic note throughout a 1 1/2-hour news conference Wednesday, drawing attention to what he viewed as Russia’s crowning achievements of this year: the Sochi Olympic victory and the annexation of Crimea. Medvedev spoke about a wide array of issues, from the economy to […]
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(Interfax – December 10, 2014) Over half of Russians (52 percent) are confident that the Crimean independence referendum was an exclusive initiative of the Crimean administration, Levada Center told Interfax. A third (34 percent) suspect that “Russian authorities might have been behind the referendum.” Fourteen percent of 1,600 respondents polled in 130 populated localities on November 21-24 are undecided. However, […]
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(Interfax – November 21, 2014) Most Russians approve of the Crimean affiliation to Russia and the negative attitude of Ukraine and the West does not bother them, the Levada Center told Interfax. Eighty-four percent of 1,600 respondents polled in 134 populated localities on November 14-17 supported the Crimean accession to Russia, 11 percent opposed the act and 6 percent were undecided. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – November 21, 2014) [Video interview here http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/mikhail-gorbachev-nobody-will-shut-my-mouth-video/511564.html] Many people who send letters to the first and last president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, still write on the envelope: “To the Secretary General of the Communist Party, Kremlin.” The Russian postal service is used to this and redirects the mail to the […]
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(Interfax – November 19, 2014) Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev believes that Russia and the West should find a compromise on the Ukrainian crisis or they will lose. “It [a compromise] has not been found yet, but it is quite possible. I think Russia and the entire Europe will lose if that doesn’t happen. The responsibility will then rest with […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – bne/IntelliNews – November 17, 2014) Russian President Vladimir Putin met with the leaders of the western world at the weekend at the G20 summit, the first face-to-face meeting of all the world’s leaders since the Russian annexation of Crimea in March. “At the closing of the evening program of the G20 summit [in Brisbane] […]
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(Interfax – November 17, 2014) Russian President Vladimir Putin has once again said that Russia did not commit any violations of international law by incorporating Crimea and described the Western reaction as totally disproportionate to what had happened. “We believe that this sort of reaction was totally disproportionate to what had happened. Whenever I hear complaints about Russia violating international […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, November 13, 2014) Vladimir Putin is proposing the kind of grand bargain to Barack Obama that Hitler proposed to Neville Chamberlain and then to Joseph Stalin, in which the West would accept Russia’s annexation of Crimea in exchange for Moscow’s cooperation on Iran, according to Andrey Illarionov. Chamberlain rejected that bargain but […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – John Freedman – November 6, 2014) To be or not to be, that is the question these days for Teatr.doc. A move by city authorities to oust the famous little theater from its basement in the center of Moscow will probably be successful. The chances are better than good that Doc, as the theater is […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, November 4, 2014) One of the most frequently invoked explanations for the inability of leaders to cope with a challenge is that it is something fundamentally new that they could not have been expected to recognize, understand, and know precisely how to respond. That has been the case in Ukraine and the […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Mark Galeotti – November 3, 2014) Mark Galeotti is professor of global affairs at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University, an expert on Russia’s security services, and author of the blog “In Moscow’s Shadows” Mikhail Volkov is a cop in Moscow (up to a point) and Viktor Skvortsov is a criminal (of sorts), […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, October 14, 2014) Since at least the time of the Russian Civil War, it has been common ground among many observers in Moscow and the West that Russian liberalism “ends at Ukraine,” a notion for which Aleksey Navalny’s statement that Russia will retain Crimea whatever happens appears to provide fresh evidence. But […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – October 17, 2014) Prominent Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny said in an interview this week that he would not return the Crimean Peninsula to Ukraine if he had the power to do so, and that the issue of illegal immigration was more important for Russia than anything happening in neighboring war-torn Ukraine. […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Timothy Ash of Standard Bank – October 15, 2014) Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, this week estimated that the crisis in Ukraine would likely cost the German economy €40bn this year, and a further €50bn in 2015 – presumably through lost exports, and a broader disruption to the German economy and weaker resulting real […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – October 14, 2014) Russia’s statistics agency on Tuesday launched a sweeping census of the population in the Crimea region, which the country annexed from Ukraine in March. Residents will be asked to field 33 questions on their age, ethnicity, spouse and children, native language and housing and income, the regional branch of the State Statistics […]
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(Interfax – October 8, 2014) The world should see the difference between Ukraine’s de facto annexation of Crimea in the 1990s and the self-identification of the people of Crimea in 2014, Russian State Duma speaker Sergey Naryshkin believes. He was speaking at a session of the Federation Council legislators council presidium session on 8 October, as reported by Russian privately-owned […]
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MOSCOW, October 8 (RIA Novosti) – Interethnic tensions have reduced significantly this year in Russia as a result of the country’s reunification with Crimea and President Vladimir Putin’s high approval ratings, the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office, Magomedsalam Magomedov said Wednesday. “The main factors for the significant reduction in interethnic tension was rallying people around such […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – September 5, 2014) While NATO on Thursday called on Russia to “end its illegal annexation of Crimea,” the organizers of a U.S. beauty pageant seem unfazed about the peninsula’s political status, and are planning to ship the country’s most beautiful married women to Sevastopol. Organizers of the Mrs. America beauty contest revealed Monday that they […]
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(Moscow Times – moscowtimes.com – Nabi Abdullaev – August 29, 2014) After the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine had the second-largest armed forces in Europe (after Russia) and the fourth-largest in the world (after Russia, China and the United States). Twenty-three years later, when the Russian military invaded Ukrainian territory in Crimea this February, the country formidably […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, August 24, 2014) Vladimir Putin’s Crimean Anschluss which was intended among other things to highlight or promote divisions among Ukrainians about the status of their country has had exactly the opposite effect: It has boosted the share of supporters of independent statehood from 83 percent to 90 percent, the highest ever. In […]
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Subject: RE: 2014-#176-Johnson’s Russia List/Stephen Cohen Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 From: Keith Smith <keith.smith@cepa.org> Ambassador Keith C. Smith (Ret.) Center for European Policy Analysis 1225 19th Street NW, Suite 450 Washington, D.C. 20036 August 15, 2014 Fallacies in Support of Russia’s Ukraine Policies By Keith C. Smith Center for European Policy Analysis I read with considerable interest Stephen F. […]
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(Interfax – August 14, 2014) There are many problems in Crimea which had not been solved for decades, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said. He made the statement at a meeting with members of Russian parliamentary parties in Yalta, as quoted by Russian privately-owned news Interfax agency on 14 August. “There is a lot to do here [in Crimea]. There […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Carl Schreck and Luke Johnson – August 14, 2014) The speech was Putin’s first major speech on the peninsula since May, when he spoke in glowing, historical tones about the Crimea annexation during a visit to the city of Sevastopol.The absence of television coverage appeared all the more unusual given the fact that the Ukraine crisis has been […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – August 14, 2014) As President Vladimir Putin touched down in the Crimean city of Sevastopol on Wednesday, a poll revealed that his support among voters has almost doubled since January, largely due to the Kremlin’s policies in Crimea and Ukraine, analysts said. The turmoil in Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea in […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Nataliya Kovalenko, Oleksiy Arunyan – August 02, 2014) Although the raging fighting and heated rhetoric in eastern Ukraine still command the headlines, the dispute between Kyiv and Moscow over Crimea simmers on and seems as intractable as ever. Russia annexed the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula in March, a move that Ukraine and most of the rest […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, July 14, 2014) The Ukrainian government lacks the resources to recover Crimea, according to a Moscow military analyst, and could do so only if Russia were to “weaken to the point that it simply could not defend” the peninsula. Otherwise, talk about “the return of Crimea to Ukraine” is, in his words, […]
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(RIA Novosti – July 2, 2014) Deputy Secretary of the Russian Security Council Yevgeniy Lukyanov has commented on the Ukrainian conflict, sanctions imposed against Russia after it was joined by Crimea and the Russia-West relations in an interview with Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti, published on the agency’s website on 2 July. [1] Ukraine Commenting on the recent developments […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 11, Issue 119 – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – Paul Goble – July 1, 2014) Ukraine’s intelligence service has identified five centers within the Russian Federation where Moscow is recruiting and training mercenaries and diversionists to work against Ukraine in the eastern portions of that country and perhaps further west as well (Newsru.ua, June 28). Even more worrisome, […]
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MOSCOW. June 11 (Interfax) – Annexation of Crimea happened in 1991 when the peninsula was handed over to Ukraine by irresponsible politicians, State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin said. “A referendum was held in the Crimean region back in January 1991 and Crimea’s transfer to Ukraine was actually disputed. Let me remind you that the decision was made by 93% of […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Islam Tekushev – May 28, 2014) Islam Tekushev is the editor-in-chief of the Caucasus Times. Events in Ukraine have both highlighted and influenced Abkhazia’s political divisions, as yesterday’s protests clearly demonstrate. The Crimean precedent has breathed a new divisive life into politics inside Abkhazia. Against the background of the Ukrainian crisis and the growing role of Russia in […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Delphine d’Amora – May 30, 2014) In an effort to jumpstart Crimea’s faltering economy, a government plan could offer tax breaks and other juicy business conditions on the peninsula for the next half century – but even this may not be enough to attract businesses to the badly run-down region. Russian politicians began talking about […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Panin – May 28, 2014) Acting Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Tuesday that Russia should return the $1 billion worth of gas that he said it stole while annexing Crimea, and accused Moscow of not being trustworthy when it comes to negotiating. “We would like to hear an explanation from Russia, including the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Panin – May 14, 2014) Crimea has become a multi-billion dollar sponge soaking up funds slated for crucial infrastructure projects in other regions, as the government scrambles to support its newest territory’s economy. On Tuesday, Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said that the federal budget would have to fork out from 160 billion rubles […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 11, Issue 89 – Robert McDermott – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – May 13, 2014) Since the eruption of the Ukraine crisis, Russian and Western commentators have tried to define those elements of Russian actions and policymaking that constitute “new” factors in Moscow’s relations with the West and its neighbors. On May 9, for example, with […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – May 14, 2014) When President Vladimir Putin paid a visit to Crimea during last week’s Victory Day celebrations, he described March’s annexation of the peninsula as an act of restoring “historical justness,” and military analysts say Russia’s famed Black Sea Fleet may play a crucial role in doing just that. Apart from […]
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MOSCOW, May 14 (RIA Novosti) – Russia will be obliged to take retaliatory measures if the West continues its sanctions policy, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday. “If the West continues these absolutely non-professional hysterical policies, we would have to think what we can do in return,” Lavrov said during an English-language interview with Bloomberg. The minister, however, emphasized […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Panin – May 6, 2014) Russian industry analysts said Monday that possible involvement of Chinese companies in building a bridge from mainland Russia to Crimea was a solid political and business option in solving the key transportation challenge faced by the Kremlin after absorbing the peninsula. State-owned China Railway Construction Corporation, or CRCC, may […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Peter Hobson – April 25, 2014) “The harvest will be partially or fully lost across 120,000 hectares of farmland that should be irrigated [by water from the canal],” Agriculture Minister Nikolai Fyodorov said Thursday, PRIME reported. Russia will compensate farmers for some of these losses, but not all, he said. The North Crimea Canal funnels […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, April 22, 2014) It is a measure of just how worried the leaders of countries bordering Russia are about the possibility that Vladimir Putin will build on his Crimean Anschluss by moving against their states that even Alyaksandr Lukashenka feels the need to deny that Mensk is oppressing ethnic Russians and to […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 11, Issue 73 – Pavel Felgenhauer – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – April 17, 2014) The Ukrainian crisis and the “reunification” of Crimea with the rest of Russia dominated President Vladimir Putin’s almost four-hour-long televised national phone-in-an annual PR performance that had been previously dominated by discussion of pensions, utility payments, inflation, wages and other internal “bread […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – D. Garrison Golubock – April 15, 2014) As President Vladimir Putin mobilizes soldiers on Russia’s Ukrainian border and NATO threatens consequences for any interference in eastern Ukraine, the atmosphere of angry rhetoric and brinkmanship seems frighteningly similar to the imperial squabbles of the 19th century that led to the Crimean War. While often thought of […]
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US Department of State Russian Fiction the Sequel: 10 More False Claims About Ukraine Fact Sheet Office of the Spokesperson Washington, DC April 13, 2014 “No amount of propaganda can make right something that the world knows is wrong.” – President Obama, March 26 Russia continues to spin a false and dangerous narrative to justify its illegal actions in Ukraine. […]
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… 26. New York Post: Mark Nuckols, Behind Putin’s Ukraine ‘unrest’ game.
27. The National Interest: F. Stephen Larrabee and Peter A. Wilson, Calling Putin’s Bluff.
28. NATO: Russia’s accusations – setting the record straight. Fact Sheet.
29. Commission on Security & Cooperation in Europe: U.S. Helsinki Commission. Testimony …
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Michael Bohm – April 11, 2014) Michael Bohm is opinion page editor of The Moscow Times. Russian leaders often look uninformed – or desperate – when they try to justify abuses of power by claiming that the U.S. is guilty of similar infractions. Take, for example, President Vladimir Putin’s comparison of Russia’s selective legal assault […]
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Commission on Security & Cooperation in Europe: U.S. Helsinki Commission “Ukraine: Confronting Internal Challenges and External” [hearing transcript] Commission Members Present: Senator Benjamin Cardin (D-MD); Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI); Senator John Boozman (R-AR); Representative Michael Burgess (R-TX) Representative Steve Cohen (D-TN) Speaker: Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, U.S. Department of State The Briefing Was Held From […]
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(Kremlin.ru – Novo-Ogaryovo, Moscow Region – April 10, 2014) Vladimir Putin met with core members of the Russian Popular Front national public movement. In particular, the meeting addressed implementing the Russian Popular Front’s anti-corruption project, which includes monitoring purchases for state and municipal needs. Also, Russian Popular Front representatives talked about independent supervision over implementation of the presidential executive orders […]
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