(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Anna Andrianova – February 15, 2015) Russian households are bearing the brunt of the blowback from the crisis in Ukraine and a tailspin in oil prices, setting the stage for the biggest drop in consumption in more than two decades that will deepen the country’s recession. Crushed by a 44 percent slump in the ruble in the past […]
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MOSCOW. Feb 16 (Interfax) – The lack of lending sources is having a worse effect on the Russian oil industry than the low price of oil, Energy Minister Alexander Novak said in an interview with Interfax. “The main issue is the lack of lending resources, sources of financing, not the price of oil. Accordingly, due to the lack of financing, […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – PERSPECTIVE: bne IntelliNews – February 16, 2015) [Charts here http://www.bne.eu/content/story/perspective-russias-investment-climate-plummets] A survey into Russia’s investment climate by Moscow-based Detail Communications found that investment confidence has halved since the crisis hit. However, a third of respondents – a mix of portfolio managers and analysts from some of the most prominent investment banks, asset management firms […]
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(Paul Goble – Staunton, February 16, 2015) Many in Ukraine and elsewhere are fearful that Vladimir Putin will expand his aggression into other regions of Ukraine, but, according to Ivan Yakovina of “Novoye Vremya,” he does not at least at the present time have “the strength, the motive or the opportunity” to do so. here are six compelling reasons why this […]
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Johnson’s Russia List JRL 2015-#28 :: Sunday 15 February 2015 E-Mail: davidjohnson@starpower.net A project of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs: www.ieres.org JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php 1. New York Times: Robert Mackey, Sifting Ukrainian Fact From Ukrainian Fiction. 2. www.rt.com: Russia shrugs off US envoy’s ‘evidence’ of Russian […]
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… 26. The Economist: What Russia wants. From cold war to hot war. Russia’s aggression in Ukraine is part of a broader, and more dangerous, confrontation with the West.
27. New York Times editorial: Making the Ukraine Cease-Fire Stick.
28. Washington Post editorial: The Ukraine cease-fire does little to restrain Mr. Putin.
29. Wall Street Journal editorial: Putin’s Latest Victory. The Minsk accord ratifies a Russian satrapy in Ukraine. …
US Department of State February 12, 2015 BACKGROUND BRIEFING ON UKRAINE Special Briefing Senior Administration Officials Via Teleconference Washington, DC MODERATOR: All right. Thank you very much, Operator, and thanks to all the participants in the call today. We have a background call on Ukraine with two senior Administration officials. This call will be on background, so no names or […]
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(PBS Newshour – Gwen Ifill, Michael McFaul, Fiona Hill – February 12, 2015) Click here for full transcript. GWEN IFILL: Following the Ukraine cease-fire agreement announcement, many are asking today if this deal can actually stick. We explore the chances of success with former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul. He’s now a professor at Stanford University. And Fiona Hill, director […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – February 13, 2015) The launch of Russia’s first Unified Space System satellite Tundra has been delayed until June 2015 for technical reasons, Russian business daily Kommersant has reported, citing sources in the space industry and Russia’s Defense Ministry. The satellite was due to enter orbit in 2013 and replace the outmoded OKO-1 satellites. […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – KYIV BLOG: Graham Stack in Berlin – February 13, 2015) Two separate investigations by Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine and the BBC have produced evidence that opposition demonstrators on Kyiv’s Maidan fired on police on February 21, 2014, in the run-up to an ensuing police massacre. The two accounts help explain the events that culminated with […]
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MOSCOW. Feb 13 (Interfax) – The issue of pilot Savchenko was indeed raised by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in the Minsk meeting in the “Normandy format” and Russia made no promises, but gave explanations, Russian presidential press officer Dmitry Peskov told Interfax on Friday, commenting on the statement made by Poroshenko saying he had raised the issue of Savchenko release […]
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… 25. Wall Street Journal: U.S. Weapons to Ukraine Could Take Months, Officials Say. Supply Shortages, Pentagon Bureaucracy Complicate Sending of Lethal Aid.
26. Foxnews.com: US sending around 600 paratroopers to Ukraine to train troops. …
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Howard Amos – February 12, 2015) U.S. President Barack Obama has claimed the Kremlin’s role in the Ukraine crisis brought the Russian economy to its knees. So, if a peace accord is reached in Minsk on Wednesday will it reboot the Russian economy? Hopes are high that a gathering of Russian, French, German and Ukrainian […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, February 12, 2015) In the 1930s, Hitler pursued a simple policy: he simply said one thing and did another. Putin has innovated: he not only lies but uses forces to do his bidding for which no one holds him responsible and thus has the chance to be accepted by some in the […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – bne IntelliNews – February 12, 2015) After a marathon negotiating session that lasted 17 hours, Russia, Ukraine and the EU have thrashed out the framework for a partial peace deal to bring the fighting in the east of Ukraine to an end, the various parties announced February 12. Russian President Vladimir Putin said in […]
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Johnson’s Russia List JRL 2015-#25 :: Wednesday 11 February 2015 E-Mail: davidjohnson@starpower.net A project of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs: www.ieres.org JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php 1. Russia Beyond the Headlines: Texas choir wins Grammy for ‘The Sacred Spirit of Russia’ 2. World Socialist Web Site: Catastrophic […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Alexei Lossan – February 11, 2015) Russia’s consumer price inflation hit 15 percent in annual terms in January, the highest rate since February 1999, on the back of the sharp decline in oil prices last fall and the consequent collapse of the Russian ruble in December. Future fluctuations in the inflation rate are […]
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(Interfax – Istanbul, February 10, 2015) Ukraine has asked Russia to agree to a restructuring of its debt, but it is in the Russian Federation’s interest to recover the currency assets it invested in Ukrainian eurobonds, and Russia is not willing for the repayment of these debts to be deferred or delayed, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov has told journalists. […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – bne IntelliNews – February 11, 2015) Ukrainian government forces trapped in the eastern Ukrainian town of Debaltseve are suffering significant casualties, according to Ukraine’s general staff. Debaltseve is the easternmost town held by Ukraine in the conflict-torn Donbas region, and is now surrounded by Russian-backed rebel forces following an encircling action. The fate of […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – February 10, 2015) The outcome of the Ukraine crisis talks in Minsk on Wednesday depends on whether the United States is prepared to exert enough influence on the divergent power elites in Kiev to accept the deal, analysts told The Moscow Times. Whether Washington will opt to pressure the diverse political forces […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – FILM REVIEW: Anna Kravchenko in Moscow – February 10, 2015) Andrei Zvyagintsev’s “Leviathan”, probably the most anticipated film in post-Soviet Russia, hit the screens of more than 600 cinemas on February 5. The film made RUB7.2mn (€97,000) in its first day of release, an impressive sum for Hollywood-dominated Russian distribution market. Weekend box office […]
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… 18. Reuters: Ex-electrician backed by Putin helps unite Ukraine rebels. (Alexander Zakharchenko)
19. Washington Times: Pentagon prepping forces to assist Ukraine’s national guard. Size of the contingent still undecided. …
(Interfax – Moscow, February 9, 2015) The Dozhd television channel is resuming live broadcasts, which were temporarily suspended while the channel was in the process of moving to a new television studio. “From today, the Dozhd television channel is based at a new studio at the Flakon design centre. We have almost finished setting up the new studio, and in […]
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(Interfax – February 9, 2015) Russian citizens are not particularly worried about corruption in the country, Russian Deputy Interior Minister Igor Zubov has said, as reported by privately-owned news agency Interfax on 9 February. “All the colour revolutions, in every country that has had one, took place under the slogan of fighting corruption, but thereafter these countries were thrown into […]
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(Interfax – February 9, 2015) The draft of a new Ukraine peace agreement that is expected to be discussed at the planned Ukraine contact group meeting in Minsk on 10 February will be based on the “current” separation line between the Ukrainian forces and east Ukrainian separatists rather than on the one stipulated in the peace deal adopted in September […]
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ISTANBUL. Feb 10 (Interfax) – Russia warned G20 finance ministers meeting in Istanbul about the risks of a slowdown of global economic growth as a result of the drop in oil prices and called for a deeper analysis of the impact that the drop in prices has had on the economies of various countries, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Alexei Lossan, RBTH – February 7, 2015) The Winter Olympic Games in Sochi were supposed to give an impetus to the development of the Russian economy, with the Central Bank anticipating that Russia’s GDP would grow by 1.8 percent in 2014, partly as a result of the Olympics. However, observers say that sanctions […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Matthew Bodner – February 10, 2015) U.S. provision of military aid to Ukraine would be seen by Moscow as a declaration of war and spark a global escalation of Ukraine’s separatist conflict, Russian defense analysts said. With Russia-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine seizing new territory from the Ukrainian army, voices in Washington are demanding that […]
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… 12. Euromaidan Press: Putin threatens to use nuclear warheads against Ukraine, EU.
13. Moscow Times: Saakashvili Says Ukraine Could ‘Conquer Russia,’ Provoking Official Outcry.
14. Washington Post editorial: Ukraine needs strong Western support to fend off Russia’s aggression.
15. Washington Post: Anne Applebaum, The long view with Russia.
16. Reuters: U.S. arms might fan Ukraine war: OSCE chief. …
(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Josh Rogin – February 7, 2015) Josh Rogin is a Bloomberg View columnist who writes about national security and foreign affairs. He has previously worked for the Daily Beast, Newsweek, Foreign Policy magazine, the Washington Post, Congressional Quarterly and Asahi Shimbun. In the span of 45 minutes today, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov rewrote the history […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, February 8, 2015) German intelligence services estimate that 50,000 people have died in the war in Ukraine so far, a figure almost ten times larger than that offered by Ukrainian or other sources, according to a report in today’s “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.” (faz.net/aktuell/politik/ausland/ukraine-sicherheitskreise-bis-zu-50-000-tote-13416132.html). According to the German paper, earlier figures provided by […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – February 9, 2015) Georgia’s former President Mikheil Saakashvili told a Ukrainian television channel over the weekend that Ukraine’s military could “conquer all of Russia,” a remark that incited the ire of Russian officials. Saakashvili was “born an idiot and will die one,” Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees the country’s defense industry, said […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Peter Spinella – February 9, 2015) Russians are more anti-American than they have been at any point in the past 25 years, according to a recent opinion poll. More than 80 percent of Russians view the United States negatively, the exact inverse of how the public felt in 1992, respected independent pollster the Levada Center […]
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Thank you very much for following Johnson’s Russia List, with 8,091 followers on twitter and counting … 3,211 persons “liking” the JRL on facebook and counting … thousands subscribing to the core e-mail newsletter … and thousands visiting the JRL web home … Do you have any feedback you care to share about the JRL and any of its facets […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – February 9, 2015) “Who is Mr. Putin?” The ongoing Ukraine conflict has breathed new life into a question that has long stumped Western policymakers and analysts. Efforts to grasp President Vladimir Putin’s logic have all but reduced Western leaders to soothsaying and studying tea leaves, with hundreds of thousands of U.S. taxpayer […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – bne IntelliNews – February 6, 2015) Nato has agreed to establish a new rapid reaction force, boost its troops in Poland and Romania, and establish six command and control centres in Central and Southeast Europe as part of the alliance’s response to the Russian aggression in Ukraine. According to Nato’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg, […]
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(Interfax – February 8, 2015) Russia hopes that the feeling of excitement inspired by NATO’s all-out support will not do harm to the Ukrainian leadership, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the press in Munich on Sunday. “Concerning Ukraine in the context of relations with NATO, and the parallels between Ukraine and Georgia, I did not draw such parallels. NATO […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – February 5, 2015) Russians were much happier by the end of 2014 than a year earlier, according to a recent survey by WIN/Gallup International, which showed the country’s “happiness index” more than doubling over the past year. The index – which is obtained by subtracting the percentage of respondents who said they were unhappy with […]
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(Interfax – February 9, 2015) Economic problems and inflation rates leading to soaring prices are Russians’ biggest worries as mentioned by 23 percent and 22 percent of respondents respectively in a recent poll held by the Public Opinion Foundation. Compared to December 2014, the share of Russians upset by economic problems has grown by 9 percent. The Foundation polled 1,600 […]
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[David Johnson still amidst distant travels, issues intermittent] Johnson’s Russia List JRL 2015-#22 :: Saturday 7 February 2015 E-Mail: davidjohnson@starpower.net A project of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs: www.ieres.org JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php 1. The Guardian (UK): Shaun Walker, Kommunar, east Ukraine: ‘Nothing to eat, nothing to […]
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[David Johnson still amidst distant travels, issues intermittent] Johnson’s Russia List JRL 2015-#21 :: Friday 6 February 2015 E-Mail: davidjohnson@starpower.net A project of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs: www.ieres.org JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php 1. Reuters: Echoes of the 1990s in Ukraine as financial crisis bites. 2. Kyiv […]
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Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2015 From: David Law <davidmurraylaw@gmail.com> Subject: Getting Ready for President Putin’s Successor David Law, www.davidmlaw.com, is Senior Associate at the Security Governance Group and Senior Fellow at its partner organisation, the Centre for Security Governance. President Putin’s current mandate runs out in 2018. It has long been expected that he will go for a second six-year […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.ru – Nick Kochan in London – February 5, 2015) As winter grips the UK, a group of Russian coal companies with leaders closely linked to President Vladimir Putin are enabling British power companies to keep the country’s lights on – a precarious position as the sanctions rhetoric rises once again. Three Russian firms, SUEK, KRU […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Peter Hobson – February 6, 2015) Despite dire economic forecasts, Russia will escape high unemployment and social unrest this year thanks to an exodus of migrant workers, clever politics and a flexible shadow economy, analysts said. Officials are braced for layoffs. Russia must “prepare for the fact that people will become unemployed,” Deputy Prime Minister […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Henry Kirby in London – February 6, 2015) [Chart here http://www.bne.eu/content/story/bnechart-russians-appear-blase-toward-sanctions] A recent poll by Russia’s Levada Center has shown that Western sanctions left scarcely more of an impression on Russians than their New Year holidays did. As the bne:Chart shows, when asked January 23-26 what they considered the most important event of the […]
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(PONARS Eurasia – ponarseurasia.org – February 5, 2015) PONARS Eurasia is a network of over 100 academics, mainly from North America and post-Soviet Eurasia, who advance new policy approaches to research and security in Russia and Eurasia. Eight former senior military and diplomatic officials have called for the United States to provide $1 billion a year in military assistance to Ukraine over […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Ben Aris in Moscow – February 6, 2015) It may not be the last chance for peace, but there hasn’t been a better time than this in the last few months. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President François Hollande is sitting down with Russian President Vladimir Putin late on February 6 to hammer out […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, February 5, 2015) The Russian government has introduced draft legislation that would make it easier for Moscow to sign up professional soldiers and for commanders to force draftees to convert to that status and thus be available for dispatch to Ukraine, yet another indication Moscow is preparing for a massive invasion and […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – MOSCOW BLOG: Ben Aris in Moscow – February 6, 2015) There is talk that the US is seriously considering sending “defence weapons” to Ukraine, as the fighting escalates and President Francois Hollande and Chancellor Angela Merkel head to Moscow for a last-ditch attempt to resuscitate the Minsk ceasefire agreement. We are sliding towards a […]
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[David Johnson still amidst distant travels, issues intermittent] Johnson’s Russia List JRL 2015-#20 :: Thursday 5 February 2015 E-Mail: davidjohnson@starpower.net A project of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs: www.ieres.org JRL homepage: russialist.org JRL on Facebook: facebook.com/russialist JRL on Twitter: twitter.com/JohnsonRussiaLi Support JRL: russialist.org/funding.php 1. Interfax: Putin proposes bill on removing NGOs from foreign-agents list. 2. Sputnik: Shelling […]
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