(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Panin – April 11, 2014) Russian Armed Forces may replace the SS-18 Satan, the world’s heaviest intercontinental ballistic missile, earlier than planned due to a standoff with Ukraine, where the missile was initially assembled and is serviced, defense experts said Thursday. But while scrapping the missile and other joint projects mean “minor inconveniences” for […]
» Read more
DONETSK. April 11 (Interfax) – Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has said that the country’s new authorities have no plans to abolish the July 3, 2012 law that regulates Ukraine’s language policy. “No one is going to abolish the Kolesnychenko-Kyvalov law,” Yatsenyuk said during a visit to the Donetsk region on Friday. “It is a law that advocates the interests […]
» Read more
MOSCOW, April 11 (RIA Novosti) – The de-escalation of the crisis in Ukraine is completely possible, but attempts to legitimize the country’s new leadership must stop first, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday. “We believe that the de-escalation of the Ukrainian crisis is completely possible, but to do so it is necessary to stop imposing facts and stop the […]
» Read more
… 10. Washington Post editorial: Russia will respond only to increased sanctions over Ukraine.
11. The Heritage Foundation: Author of Russian Reset Admits Policy Is Dead.
12. Forbes.com: Mark Adomanis, The West Can ‘Win’ Ukraine, But It’s Going To Cost A Lot Of Money.
13. www.thenation.com: Alec Luhn, Will the IMF Bailout Turn Ukraine Into Another Greece? …
(RFE/RL – April 9, 2014) A top U.S. diplomat says the United States is helping Ukraine comb through a “treasure trove” of documents recovered from the government of ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in order to prosecute corrupt officials. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland said Department of Justice officials were helping to “exploit” […]
» Read more
(US Department of State – April 9, 2014) Testimony Victoria Nuland Assistant Secretary, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs Statement Before the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (Helsinki Commission) Washington, DC April 9, 2014 As prepared Thank you, Chairman Cardin and Co-Chairman Smith, for inviting me to testify before you today on the situation in Ukraine. It is […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Peter Hobson – April 10, 2014) U.S. fast food giant Burger King plans to expand its chain into Crimea, filling the vacuum left when McDonald’s pulled out of the peninsula last Friday, citing unspecified supply issues. Burger King currently has no outlets in Crimea, which has been at the center of tensions between Russia and […]
» Read more
MOSCOW, April 10 (RIA Novosti) – The creation of a Ukrainian Federation could help the country preserve its current borders, Oleg Tsarov, a Ukrainian member of parliament and presidential candidate, told RIA Novosti on Thursday. “Look what happened in the parliament yesterday. They beat up the head of the Communist faction right before my eyes. It is a blatant example […]
» Read more
MOSCOW, April 10 (RIA Novosti) – Recent statements by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on the situation in Ukraine as well as the alliance’s double standard on Crimea have hindered a de-escalation of tensions in the country, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Thursday. “Several times over the last few months we have heard nothing constructive in comments by the […]
» Read more
MOSCOW, April 10 (RIA Novosti) – Right Sector, a Ukrainian ultra-nationalist movement and illegally armed militia, now has a smartphone application which allows it to organize its tactics, according to the Vocativ news website. The Right Sector app can be downloaded on the Google Play market for Android devices and was released last week, according to the Google Play store. […]
» Read more
(RIA Novosti – Novo-Ogarevo, April 9, 2014) Russia has not yet received a clear explanation from the USA about the activities of employees of the Greystone company in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told journalists on Wednesday [9 April]. Earlier, the Russian Foreign Ministry expressed concern over the fact that additional forces of the Ukrainian army, which include representatives […]
» Read more
(The Heritage Foundation – heritage.org – Daniel Kochis – April 9, 2014) President Obama’s former Ambassador to Russia and self-described author of the Russian reset policy Michael McFaul today admitted the obvious: the reset is dead. In a radio interview with the Flint Report in Montana, McFaul stated, “The reset ended, the reset ended a long time ago.” McFaul is […]
» Read more
BRUSSELS. April 9 (Interfax) – The Ukrainian crisis is caused by two factors – internal and foreign, Russian ambassador to the European Union Vladimir Chizhov believes. “Unfortunately, during the relatively short history of Ukrainian independence – 23 years – the Ukrainian people did not have leaders that it deserved. Actually all four presidents that were in power one after the […]
» Read more
(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Daria Marchak and Jake Rudnitsky – April 10, 2014) Ukraine is reducing gas imports and halting payments for natural gas imports from Russia over price “aggression” before the world’s biggest exporter of the fuel cuts supplies, raising the risk of disrupted flows to Europe. Ukraine won’t buy gas to pump into underground storage for the heating […]
» Read more
BERLIN, April 10 (RIA Novosti) – The outflow of capital from Russia is not tied to events in Ukraine, but to fluctuations in the exchange rate of the ruble, Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov said Thursday. “The outflow of capital is not mainly tied to Crimea, the outflow, of course, is connected with the events that happened in […]
» Read more
NOVO-OGARYOVO. April 9 (Interfax) – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said that Russia is ready to join four-sided talks on Ukraine, if they are meant to urge those who are in charge in Kyiv to take care of the country but not demand cheap gas from Russia. “This is our position: we want to see clear purposes for the […]
» Read more
Re: Response to Roy (JRL #79) Date: Wednesday April 9 From: Stephen D. Shenfield (sshenfield@verizon.net) I am responding to Sergei Roy’s riposte in JRL #79 to my comments in JRL #77 on his essay in JRL #76. I should say first that it was not my purpose to review Roy’s article as a whole, but only to make a few […]
» Read more
(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Gleb Fedorov, RBTH – April 9, 2014) The series of unusual climatic events that has affected Russia over the past few years has continued into the beginning of 2014. With dramatic global changes predicted as a result of rising temperatures, what awaits the country’s geography and economy? The series of unusual climatic events […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Oleg Sukhov – April 10, 2014) The Constitutional Court has upheld the controversial law requiring some nongovernmental organizations with foreign funding to register as “foreign agents,” while an affiliate of the prominent Memorial human rights group faces closure after being labeled a foreign agent by a St. Petersburg court. The Kremlin has argued that the […]
» Read more
(Interfax – Moscow, April 9, 2014) Secretary of the Union of Journalists of Russia [UJR] Pavel Gutionov has described the current state of affairs in Russian journalism as the most serious crisis in its entire history. “Our profession is experiencing the most serious crisis in its entire history. It has even been suggested that journalism will not survive at all,” […]
» Read more
… 44. Wall Street Journal: Russian Capital Outflow Highest Since 2008.
45. Interfax: Russian law on NGOs as “foreign agents” ruled constitutional.
46. Moscow Times: Culture Ministry Affirms ‘Russia is not Europe’
47. Reuters: Russia says Gazprom, China close to gas agreement, hope to sign in May. …
MOSCOW. April 9 (Interfax) – Russia’s Economic Development Ministry has increased its capital outflow forecast for this year to $100 billion from the previous $25 billion, Deputy Economic Development Minister Andrei Klepach said at a Tuesday evening briefing in Moscow. The outflow forecast for next year in the conservative scenario is increased to $50, in the base scenario to $40 […]
» Read more
(opendemocracy.net – Benedict Coleridge – April 8, 2014) Benedict Coleridge is a graduate student in the Department of Politics and International Relations, the University of Oxford. Since the 19th century the Caucasus has been Russian’s ‘window on the East,’ its access to another, often very romanticised world. The Sochi Winter Olympics took place in the Caucasus, but they presented a […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – D. Garrison Golubock – April 8, 2014) A state commission working on a much-discussed report titled “Foundations of State Cultural Politics” will release their findings in two weeks, presidential advisor Vladimir Tolstoi announced last week, adding that the basic formula of the report could be summarized as “Russia is not Europe.” “Russia should be examined […]
» Read more
KYIV. April 8 (Interfax) – Ukraine’s acting chief of the presidential administration Serhiy Pashynsky has denied claims that foreign mercenaries are involved in the Interior Ministry’s operations in east Ukraine. “I responsibly declare: there is no Right Sector, let alone U.S. security forces, in Kharkiv, Donetsk or Luhansk,” Pashynsky said. He joked, pointing at himself and Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen […]
» Read more
KYIV. April 9 (Interfax) – A person who took part in the winter protests in Kyiv’s Independence Square (Maidan) was hospitalized and died in the past 24 hours, the Ukrainian Health Ministry press service reported on Wednesday. “As of 6:00 a.m. on April 9, 2014, 11 people sought medical assistance in the past 24 hours. Six of those people were […]
» Read more
(Interfax – April 8, 2014) The Russian Constitutional Court has ruled that the controversial law that requires all non-government organizations to register as “foreign agents” if they receive funding from abroad and are involved in political activities is constitutional. However, the court said that the provision that lists fines for violating the law is unconstitutional because it says that the […]
» Read more
MOSCOW. April 9 (Interfax) – Russia’s Economic Development Ministry has lowered its 2014 GDP growth forecast in the base scenario from 2.5% to 1.1% and in the conservative scenario to 0.5%, Deputy Economic Development Minister Andrei Klepach said during a Tuesday evening briefing in Moscow. The main difference between the two scenarios, Klepach said, is the possibility in the base […]
» Read more
Subject: Response to Shenfield (JRL#77) Date: Tue, 08 Apr 2014 From: Sergei Roy <sergeiroy@yandex.ru> First, I would like to thank all the nice people who have written to me to say all those nice words about my tour d’horizon “Ukraine: Triumph, Tragedy, or Farce?” – a comparison of certain features of the anti-Communist, anti-Soviet, democratic revolution of 1991 and of […]
» Read more
Subject: Ukraine: a change of view on the change of regime Date: Tue, 08 Apr 2014 From: Stephen D. Shenfield <sshenfield@verizon.net> In my paper ‘Ukraine: popular uprising or fascist coup?’ (JRL 2014-#75-76, April 4-5) I concluded that right radicals played a ‘crucial role’ in the change of regime in Kiev. Since then I have reconsidered this view in light of […]
» Read more
MOSCOW. April 9 (Interfax) – Russia is not conducting any unusual or unplanned military activities on its territory in the area of the Ukrainian border, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. “The U.S. and Ukraine have no reasons for concerns. Russia has said many times that it is not conducting any unusual or unplanned activities significant in terms of military issues […]
» Read more
NOVO-OGARYOVO. April 9 (Interfax) – It is hoped that the current Ukrainian authorities will not take any irreparable actions, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. “I hope that those temporarily carrying out the duties [of Ukrainian authorities] will not do anything that can not be corrected,” Putin said at a meeting on energy dialog with Ukraine.
» Read more
(Interfax – April 9, 2014) Andrey Klimov, deputy head of the international affairs committee of the Federation Council, has said the US State Department statements about unrest in eastern Ukraine being sponsored by Russia are absurd, Russian privately-owned news agency Interfax reported on 8 April. “Such statements are absolutely groundless and absurd. If Americans use these methods in their work […]
» Read more
KYIV. April 9 (Interfax) – Serhiy Tihipko, a Ukrainian presidential candidate, said he has managed to get into the building of the Ukrainian Security Service’s department in the Luhansk region and talk to the people who have occupied it. “All information that there are some Russians there is false,” Tihipko told a briefing in the Ukrainian parliament on Wednesday. Tihipko […]
» Read more
MOSCOW, April 9 (RIA Novosti) – Russia is not conducting any unusual or unplanned military activities near its border with Ukraine, the country’s foreign ministry said Wednesday, adding that attempts to accuse Moscow of building up troops in the region are unfounded. “The US and Ukraine have no reason to worry. Russia has said several times that it is not […]
» Read more
MOSCOW, April 9 (RIA Novosti) – Russia does not recognize the legitimacy of Ukraine’s new authorities but continues its economic assistance to its crisis-hit neighbor, a situation that will not last forever, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday. “As you know, our partners in Europe recognize the legitimacy of the current Kiev authorities, but are doing nothing in order to […]
» Read more
(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Lyubov Chizhova and Farangis Najibullah – MOSCOW – April 09, 2014) It will take some time to revise Russia’s history textbooks to reflect the annexation of Crimea. But that’s not preventing the authorities from moving quickly to assure the country’s school curriculum sticks to a politically — and patriotically — correct line on the issue. In recent weeks, a new […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Panin – April 9, 2014) As the EU presses on with sanctions against Russia for seizing Crimea, the $50 billion South Stream pipeline, meant to bring Russian gas through the Black Sea to Europe, may be frozen in favor of other projects. The European Union is close to freezing the progress of South Stream […]
» Read more
KYIV. April 8 (Interfax) – Most Ukrainian citizens would like the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, including establishing a free trade zone, to be signed as quickly as possible but stances as to when this should be done differ. According to the poll held by the Rating sociological group, the results of which Interfax obtained on Tuesday, 38% of respondents believe that […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova – April 9, 2014) Russia’s top university for aspiring diplomats, the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, makes a show of being a worldly place. In the university’s main building, a sprawling gray structure in southwest Moscow, students dressed in suits stroll along hallways named after international streets like New York’s iconic Broadway. […]
» Read more
DONETSK. April 9 (Interfax) – The building of the Donetsk region’s administration, which was occupied by anti-Maidan protesters on April 6, stayed under their control in the morning of Wednesday. An Interfax correspondent has reported that there are three lines of barricades made of cement and sand are located in front of the building. The metal Mertsalov Palm Monument, a […]
» Read more
(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, April 9, 2014) A major reason the crisis in Ukraine is now so dangerous, Georgy Mirsky says, is that “neither [Russian President Vladimir] Putin nor [US President Barack] Obama wants to go into history as the politician who ‘lost’ Ukraine, although [that country] does not belong to either the one or the […]
» Read more
(Stratfor.com – George Friedman – April 8, 2014) George Friedman is the Chairman of Stratfor. Ever since the end of the Cold War, there has been an assumption that conventional warfare between reasonably developed nation-states had been abolished. During the 1990s, it was expected that the primary purpose of the military would be operations other than war, such as peacekeeping, […]
» Read more
… 38. Stratfor.com: George Friedman, U.S. Defense Policy in the Wake of the Ukrainian Affair.
39. New York Times editorial: A Familiar Script in Ukraine.
40. Wall Street Journal editorial: Putin’s Latest Escalation. Russia follows the Crimea script in eastern Ukraine. …
(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Antoine Blua – April 8, 2014) Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) says it has “neutralized” the activities of Chechen militant leader Doku Umarov. The April 8 announcement stops short of a full confirmation of Umarov’s death, but it comes one month after a website close to Russian Islamist militants, Kavkaz Center, said Umarov had “become a martyr.” Considered the leader […]
» Read more
(Interfax – April 8, 2014) Vladimir Putin would win a convincing victory were presidential elections to be held next Sunday, the Levada center pollster told Interfax. Forty-six percent of respondents and 77 percent of those who have made up their minds already would vote for Putin, it said. The poll was conducted on March 21 to 24 in 130 urban […]
» Read more
(Kremlin.ru – April 7, 2014) Vladimir Putin took part in an expanded meeting of the Federal Security Service board. The meeting reviewed the results of the FSB’s activities in 2013 and set the priorities for 2014. —– PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA VLADIMIR PUTIN: Good afternoon, At this expanded meeting today, we will discuss the Federal Security Service’s results over the recent […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – April 8, 2014) The Russian Foreign Ministry has warned Ukraine against a reportedly planned sale of technology for long-range missiles, saying the Kiev administration was illegitimate but still needed to act responsibly on the world stage. Citing two international nonproliferation treaties, to which Ukraine is a signatory – the International Code of […]
» Read more
(Business New Europe – bne.eu – April 7, 2014) With pro-Russian protests in eastern Ukraine turning violent and fears growing of a Russian incursion on the pretext of “protecting” ethnic Russian civilians, attention is now turning to what the economy of this country would look like were those regions to split. The answer: not good. A group of protestors who […]
» Read more
(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Ben Aris, special to RBTH – April 8, 2014) Ben Aris is the editor-in-chief of Business New Europe. The incursion into the Crimea was as much a shock to Russia’s business leaders as it was to the politicians in Brussels and Washington and is bound to hurt both domestic and foreign investment this […]
» Read more