(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – April 22, 2015) Moscow would welcome the involvement of any country that could pressure Kiev into observing a cease-fire with separatists, the Kremlin said, after the U.S. ambassador to Russia suggested President Barack Obama would readily participate in the Ukrainian peace talks if he were invited. Ambassador John Tefft said U.S. officials […]
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MOSCOW. April 22 (Interfax) – The strengthening of the ruble due to growth in prices for oil has ended, First Deputy Central Bank Governor Ksenia Yudayeva told journalists at the Forum for Financial Stability on Wednesday. “The strengthening of the ruble has ended, it has partially ended, what we saw was connected with the sharp movement upwards in prices for […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – bne IntelliNews – April 22, 2015) Western sanctions and low oil prices caused Russia’s economy to shrink by 2% in the first three months of the year, the first time it contracted since 2009, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in Moscow on April 21 as he presented the government’s annual report to parliament. The country faced […]
» Read moreJohnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#79 :: Tuesday 21 April 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 JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php RUSSIA 1. Forbes.com: Mark Adomanis, Would Liberal Reform ‘Cure Russia’s Ailments?’ 2. Russia Direct: Putin’s Direct Line, Russia’s culture wars and the […]
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Over the weekend, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin appeared to soften his line against the West, particularly the United States. Having previously stated that the United States has no allies, only vassals, Putin this time said: “We have some disagreements on several issues on the international agenda. But at the same time there is something that unites us, forces us to […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 12, Issue 73 – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – Pavel K. Baev) “Boring” is perhaps the prevalent impression of President Vladimir Putin’s televised four-hour-long Q & A session that aired last Thursday (April 16), which was meant to demonstrate his good health and relaxed attitude to the great many problems worrying his loyal subjects. The three […]
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(Interfax – April 21, 2015) The Civil Assistance human rights organization will appeal the Russian Justice Ministry’s decision to assign it ‘foreign agent’ status. “Naturally, we will lodge an appeal against this decision with the district court,” the organization’s lawyer Kirill Koroteyev has said. “We will also request a suspension of the Justice Ministrys ruling because the filing of a […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – April 21, 2015) The Kremlin’s iconic watchtower has been renovated especially for the occasion, new military hardware will be unveiled on Red Square and the clouds will no doubt be seeded to prevent any chance of rain on the parade – but a host of world leaders have rejected invitations to Russia’s […]
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Spread across the frozen whiteness of the Russian Arctic, the ambitious $27 billion Yamal gas megaproject aims to defy both the extreme temperatures and the Ukraine crisis impacting its funding. Some 2,500 kilometres (1,600 miles) northeast of Moscow, the Yamal site — a joint venture by Russia’s Novatek, France’s Total and China’s CNPC — is eventually meant be one of […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Peter Hobson – April 21, 2015) Russia’s trade turnover with the outside world plunged 30.1 percent year-on-year in the first two months of 2015 as oil price falls, currency devaluation and tit-for-tat sanctions shook the Russian economy. The value of Russia’s international trade fell to $83.3 billion over January and February, according to data published […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Delphine d’Amora – April 21, 2015) The ruble’s rapid recovery in recent weeks has seen prices on some foods fall, easing months of spiraling inflation and softening one of the most widely felt blows of Russia’s economic crisis. All major retailers contacted by The Moscow Times last week said that the ruble’s rebound of some […]
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MOSCOW. April 21 (Interfax) – The United States Ambassador to Russia, John Tefft, has confirmed that it will be he who is representing his country at a military parade in Moscow on May 9 on the occasion of the 70th V-Day anniversary. When asked on the Ekho Moskvy radio on Tuesday why U.S. President Barack Obama declined the invitation to […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, April 21, 2015) The West and Russia’s liberal intelligentsia equate civil society with the liberal opposition, but this is a serious error, two Russian analysts say. Instead, civil society need not be an opponent of the authorities but “yet another ‘branch of power’” that can take on itself things that “other branches for […]
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Russia’s economy has been through a series of seismic shocks in the past year – but there are increasing reasons to be optimistic as the amount of money being pulled out of the country slows, according to the country’s Finance Minister, Anton Siluanov.
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(Interfax – Moscow, April 20, 2015) Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill believes the Ukrainian crisis is a challenge to the unity of the Russian church and is opposed to attempts to lend the crisis a religious dimension. “The Ukrainian crisis and the desire of certain political forces to place it in the context of faith are a challenge […]
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MOSCOW. April 21 (Interfax) – When building its ethnic policy the government must take into account that the many years of propaganda hysteria which was stoked in order to instill hatred towards Russia in Crimean Tartars did not pass without a trace, Crimean governor Sergei Aksyonov said. “Kyiv and its allies in Mejlis consistently pursued the line towards pitting the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Des Brown – April 21, 2015) Just over 30 years ago, Mikhail Gorbachev became general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The next day, The Times of London ran an editorial entitled “Mr Gorbachov’s Hour” – the British media had yet to learn to spell his name – saying that he could […]
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Johnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#78 :: Monday 20 April 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 JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php RUSSIA 1. Moscow Times: Fyodor Lukyanov, Putin Wants Peaceful Coexistence With the West. 2. The National Interest: Graham Allison and Dimitri K. […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Anna Yalovkina – Anna Yalovkina is a journalist from Kyrgyzstan and a correspondent at the internet portal Vecherny Bishkek. She writes for lenta.ru and films video for RFE/RL – April 17, 2015) As oppression heats up in Russia, post-revolutionary Ukraine is attracting political émigrés from the Russian opposition. From the moment the Maidan started in Ukraine, Russian authorities rushed […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – bne IntelliNews – April 20, 2015) Ukraine is ready to play hard ball in its bid to restructure $15.3bn in foreign debt, was the signal sent by Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko to corporate bondholders in Washington on April 17. The government wants to secure a $40bn bailout package assembled with the International Monetary Fund […]
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DONETSK. April 20 (Interfax) – Four people were killed in hostilities in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) in the period of April 11-17, DPR Ombudsperson Darya Morozova said. She posted her weekly socioeconomic report for the DPR on her website on Monday. Morozova quoted official statistics from the DPR Health Ministry and forensic medicine authorities to say that the […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Leonid Bershidsky – April 16, 2015) Russian President Vladimir Putin has an optics problem: Even as he asks people to be patient with the economic turmoil brought on in part by his response to Western sanctions, new income and property declarations are demonstrating that he and his top staffers aren’t sharing the pain. During today’s four-hour […]
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(Interfax – April 19, 2015) Sixty percent of Rusian citizens, compared to 80% in 2001, see the death penalty as an acceptable punishment, according to a poll conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation. The poll was held on April 11 and 12 among 1,500 respondents in 100 localities of 43 regions. Twenty-two percent of those polled, compared to 16% in […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Leonid Ragozin – April 17, 2015) Vladimir Putin appeared this week in his annual marathon television broadcast to answer questions posed by viewers from across Russia. Of course, the four-hour show, Direct Line With Vladimir Putin, was carefully choreographed to avoid anything that could embarrass the Russian leader. But that doesn’t mean the broadcast shied away […]
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We find ourselves in an increasingly risky strategic environment. The Ukrainian crisis has threatened the stability of relations between Russiaand the West, including the nuclear dimension — as became apparent last month when it was reported that Russian defense officials had advised President Vladimir V. Putin to consider placing Russia’s nuclear arsenal on alert during last year’s crisis in Crimea.
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – James Henderson – April 17, 2015) James Henderson is Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies The visit of Chinese Premier Xi Jinping to Moscow in May to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II could also mark the next stage in Russia’s “pivot to Asia” if, as some […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – David Tweed, Haslinda Amin – April 20, 2015) Russia’s economy showed signs of recovery in the first and second quarters amid a declining dependence on oil, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said. “Oil prices are not as important to the Russian economy as before,” Dvorkovich told Bloomberg TV Monday at the World Economic Forum on […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Peter Hobson – April 20, 2015) The ruble slumped 4 percent and Moscow-listed stocks fell on Friday after official data showed that Russia’s economy contracted sharply in the first quarter of this year. The data, which showed a deep decline in real wages and consumer spending, came a day after President Vladimir Putin told Russians […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, April 20, 2015) Ukrainians and Russians differ fundamentally in the source of sovereignty in their countries, with Ukrainians, like citizens of Western democracies, viewing the people as sovereign and with the Russians, like the subjects of autocracies of all kinds, assuming that their supreme leader is, according to a new poll. Irina […]
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Changes to the Russian national health care system have proceeded according to an obscure logic and led to very mixed results for medical personnel — and sometimes to lethal results for patients. The authorities wanted to optimize and modernize the system by boosting the quality of medical care and making it more accessible. Instead, medical care has become inaccessible for a large part of the population, especially in rural areas: doctors labor under increased workloads, thereby compromising patient care; mortality […]
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Faced with the triple whammy of plunging oil prices, currency volatility and Western sanctions, there’s no dearth of challenges for Russia’s ailing economy, but Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said what hurts most is the scarcity of financing for new investments. “The shortness of financing for new investments is where the Russian economy is being hit in the most important […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – April 20, 2015) Russian President Vladimir Putin may have set a dangerous precedent after convincing a retired soldier to buy his wife a pet pooch, possibly spawning a wave of similar requests from animal-lovers nationwide. “Please just say to him: ‘Boris, you’re wrong! Let your wife have a dog!’ We’ve already tried everything,” a woman […]
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In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Rep. Ed Royce, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, addresses what he characterizes as a Russian information war, featuring anti-American propaganda and conspiracy theories. Of concern to Royce is that U.S. international broadcasting services that played a stronger role during the Cold War have “withered,” such that Russian propaganda will flourish unless the U.S. services […]
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Peter Pomeranzev Senior Fellow, Legatum Institute House Committee on Foreign Affairs April 15 2014, ‘Confronting Russia’s Weaponization of Information’ During the Russian invasion of Crimea last year, most of the world’s journalists seemed confused. Most of the West’s leaders were taken aback. But when it was over, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), General Philip M. Breedlove, defined what had happened […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, April 17, 2015) Vladimir Putin’s statements about Ukraine in his “direct line” program yesterday look “moderate” but only in comparison with the militaristic declarations of the Russian defense minister and chief of the Russian general staff. But no one should be deceived into thinking he has changed his mind or assumptions, according to […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – bne IntelliNews – April 16, 2015) In an anticipated display of defiance towards Russia’s Western critics, President Vladimir Putin on April 16 said his country is not to blame for the continuing conflict in Eastern Ukraine, has now weathered the worst of the sanctions storm, and can expect economic growth to resume in two […]
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The rupture between Russia and the West stemming from the Ukraine crisis has led Moscow to expand ties with Asia, especially China. Dmitri Trenin, head of the Carnegie Moscow Center, talks to DW about the implications.
» Read moreJohnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#77 :: Friday PM 17 April 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 JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php Russia 1. Kremlin.ru: Direct line with Vladimir Putin (transcript continued). 2. Business New Europe: Putin says Russia has weathered sanctions storm. […]
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“Could a U.S. response to Russia’s action in Ukraine provoke a confrontation that leads to a U.S.-Russia War?” This jolting question is raised by Graham Allison and Dimitri Simes in the cover article of The National Interest.
» Read moreJohnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#76 :: Friday AM 17 April 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 JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php Russia 1. Kremlin.ru: Direct line with Vladimir Putin (partial transcript). 2. Kremlin.ru: Answers to journalists’ questions after Direct Line.
» Read moreJohnson’s Russia List :: JRL 2015-#75 :: Wednesday 15 April 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 JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php Russia 1. Moscow Times: ‘Optimization’ of Health Reform Causing Russian Mortality Rate to Rise. 2. Kremlin.ru: Working meeting with Healthcare Minister Veronika […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 12, Issue 69 – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – Roger McDermott – April 14, 2015) All parties to the Minsk Two agreement, which has resulted in a shaky ceasefire in southeastern Ukraine since February 12, express varying levels of concern about a possible full resumption of hostilities. On April 10, the pro-Russian Ukrainian rebel leader who heads the Donetsk […]
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KYIV. April 15 (Interfax) – Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) chief Valentyn Nalyvaichenko claims that Russian presidential aide Vladislav Surkov was in Kyiv on February 20-21, 2014. “We are convinced that there is a need to investigate both crimes committed by Ukrainian officials and the role of Russian high-ranking officials in the events in Kyiv’s Maidan. I can confirm that we […]
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MOSCOW. April 15 (Interfax) – Moody’s Investors Service expects Russian inflation to peak at 17%-18% in the second quarter of 2015 and to drop below 10% by mid-2016 as the impact of the ruble’s depreciation fades, Moody’s said in a report on Russia’s banking sector in 2015. “Therefore Central Bank of Russia (CBR) is likely to loosen monetary policy on […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Graham Stack in Kyiv, Mari Bastashevski in Donetsk – April 15, 2015) The Russian ruble is gaining ground against the hryvnia across rebel-held parts of East Ukraine’s Donbas region, 19 years after Kyiv introduced the national currency to end the country’s membership of the ruble zone. As Eastern Ukraine heads towards becoming a frozen […]
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Ukraine hits ‘dead end’ as lasting peace deal eludes leaders. The foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine on Monday called for incremental steps to de-escalate the fighting in eastern Ukraine. But the two sides have yet to agree on a long-term political settlement
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MOSCOW. April 15 (Interfax) – Over 1.5 million questions have been asked in the upcoming Q&A session of President Vladimir Putin to begin at noon on April 16. “We have received 1.2 million calls, approximately 24,000 MMS messages, 285,000 text messages, 6,500 video questions and almost 190,000 e-mails sent to the website,” Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov said. Russians wishing […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – April 15, 2015) Russia’s attempts to reform its health services have resulted in a larger number of people in hospitals dying and an increased mortality rate in the country in general, a report by the government’s accounting agency said. The hospital mortality rate increased by 2.6 percent last year compared to the […]
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Russia must review its participation in international financial organisations because the country is paying too much in fees, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said on Wednesday. http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/15/russia-crisis-internationalfunds-idUSR4N0X602D20150415
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Matthew Bodner – April 15, 2015) Russia’s decision this week to lift a self-imposed embargo on selling powerful S-300 anti-aircraft systems to Iran is likely an attempt to turn the Middle Eastern country into a major new market for Russian arms exports. As the international community edges closer to a nuclear deal with Iran, the […]
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