(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Fyodor Lukyanov, special to RBTH – March 31, 2014) The Ukrainian crisis is far from over. However, no sober dialogue is taking place. Yet it is high time to consider all the circumstances quietly, in order to minimise the risks, says political expert Fyodor Lukyanov. Fyodor Lukyanov is chairman of the Council for […]
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MOSCOW, April 1 (RIA Novosti) – Ukraine’s loss of territorial integrity was a result of internal processes, not interference from Russia, which never violated its obligations under a 1994 agreement on respecting Ukrainian borders, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday. “The current Kiev ‘government,’ which came to power in the wake of an unconstitutional coup, carried out policies, especially in […]
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KHUJAND, Tajikistan, April 1 (RIA Novosti) – A scenario similar to the Arab Spring has unfolded in crisis-hit Ukraine during and after the events leading up to the ouster of the country’s president in February, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday. “With great sorrow, I noted that a scenario similar to the Arab Spring was used in that country,” […]
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KIEV, April 1 (RIA Novosti) – Ukraine’s parliament has ordered the immediate disarming of illegally armed groups in the country following a fatal shooting Monday on the city’s main square believed to have involved a political activist of the Right Sector movement. “In line with the extreme sociopolitical situation in the country, the escalation of crime and systematic provocations from […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Patrick Donahue – April 1, 2014) Germany’s top diplomat said Ukraine won’t join NATO and urged Russia to move troops away from the Ukrainian border, saying it would be a “small signal” that the crisis is easing. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his French and Polish counterparts, Laurent Fabius and Radoslaw Sikorski, said the European Union […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 11, Issue 61 – Roger McDermott – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – April 1, 2014) Since late February, Russia’s Armed Forces have engaged in multiple military exercises, several snap inspections to test combat readiness, as well as an apparent “build-up” close to Ukraine’s eastern border. While President Vladimir Putin has remained largely quiet concerning these developments, […]
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(Stratfor.com – George Friedman – April 1, 2014) During the Cold War, U.S. secretaries of state and Soviet foreign ministers routinely negotiated the outcome of crises and the fate of countries. It has been a long time since such talks have occurred, but last week a feeling of deja vu overcame me. Americans and Russians negotiated over everyone’s head to […]
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Moscow, 31 March: The State Duma is ready for dialogue with the Ukrainian Supreme Council on various issues in order to bring their positions closer, including on the subject of the upcoming presidential election in Ukraine, member of the State Duma Committee for Security and Countering Corruption Nikolay Kovalev (One Russia parliamentary party) has said. “When 70 people in the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – April 1, 2014) The Cabinet approved a plan to privatize an additional 431 companies through 2016, according to a document published on the government’s website Monday. About 20 percent of Novorossiysk Commercial Sea Port, the Russian Lottery, and multiple scientific-research, construction, and agricultural facilities are up for sale, in addition to regional airports, shipping companies […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Maria Karnaukh, special to RBTH – April 1, 2014) The Russian Federation’s newest subject is likely to be designated a special economic zone. A preferential tax regime, state investment and the development of existing sectors should eliminate Crimea’s dependency on subsidies and turn it into a net contributor. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev […]
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[check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List :: 2014-#72 :: 1 April 2014 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 […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Robert Coalson – March 30, 2014) Petro Poroshenko is one of the richest men in Ukraine and has been a player in national politics since 1998. Yet he remains, for the most part, an unknown quantity, a gray figure without a significant public image. Nonetheless, opinion polls show him as the front-runner in Ukraine’s May 25 […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – March 31, 2014) Almost a quarter of Russians think war with Ukraine is likely and three out of four Russians would support their government if such a war were to break out, a recent poll showed. Thirty-six percent of Russians said they would “definitely” back Moscow in case of a war against […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, March 30, 2014) Acting Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsya, during a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov [earlier] in the week, said that the idea of Ukraine’s ??federalization and giving Russian the status of a second state language was unacceptable. “Deshchytsya said that our proposal is unacceptable because federalization is contrary to the fundamental principles of […]
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(Interfax – March 31, 2014) The Ukrainian Central Election Commission has completed the process of accepting documents from people willing to run for the country’s president. Full package of documents was filed by 24 contenders, seven of them have already been registered as candidates by the Commission, the CEC spokesperson said. In all, 46 Ukrainians, including 38 independents, and eight […]
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Subject: The West should make some of Russia’s proposals our own Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 From: Anatol Lieven <anatol.lieven@kcl.ac.uk> Ukraine: Make Some of Russia’s Proposals Our Own By Anatol Lieven Anatol Lieven is a professor in the War Studies Department of King’s College London and a senior fellow of the New America Foundation. He is author of Ukraine and […]
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[check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List :: 2014-#71 :: 31 March 2014 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 […]
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[check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List :: 2014-#70 :: 29 March 2014 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 […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, March 29, 2014) Many have drawn parallels between what Vladimir Putin is doing and how the West is reacting with the Cold War or with the appeasement policies of Munich. But now that Putin has carried out the Crimean Anschluss, a far better analogy for today may be to “the phony war” […]
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(Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – thebulletin.org – Pavel Podvig – March 27, 2014) A physicist trained at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Podvig works on the Russian nuclear arsenal, US-Russian relations, and nonproliferation. … Over the years it has become cliché for commentators on US-Ru ssian affairs to observe that the relationship between the two countries has […]
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MOSCOW. March 29 (Interfax) – Interaction between Moscow, Western countries and Kyiv to settle the crisis in Ukraine is becoming more tangible, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. “Anyway, we are bringing our approaches closer together. My last meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in The Hague and my contacts with Germany, France and some other countries show […]
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(Kremlin.ru – March 29, 2014) Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation with President of the United States of America Barack Obama. The two leaders continued exchanging views on the crisis in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin drew Barack Obama’s attention to continued rampage of extremists who are committing acts of intimidation towards peaceful residents, government authorities and law enforcement agencies in various […]
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MOSCOW, March 28 (RIA Novosti), Daria Chernyshova – The slump in US President Barack Obama’s approval rating is not surprising and the President’s hawkish stance encourages disenchantment among Americans, experts believe. The situation in Ukraine has simultaneously led to both the steep decline for the US president and a sharp rise in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s approval rating, which has […]
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[check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List :: 2014-#68 :: 27 March 2014 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 […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – March 27, 2014) U.S. spying could cost software companies said Communications and Mass Media Minister Nikolai Nikiforov, in a message attached to an Instagram shot of a recent Wall Street Journal article detailing renewed U.S interest in spying on Russia. “U.S. security services have put an end to the further use of U.S. computer software […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – PERSPECTIVE – Roland Nash of Verno Investment Research – March 27, 2014) As the conflict between Russia and the West for influence in Ukraine unfolded, finance has found itself in the unfortunate position of sitting squarely in the front line. From the acceptance by Viktor Yanukovych of a $15bn loan from Russia to the […]
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Moscow, 26 March: The rouble is a sanction-proof currency, the first deputy head of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, Kseniya Yudayeva, has said at a conference in the State Duma. “The rouble is the most sanction-proof currency,” she said without specifying the currencies compared to which the rouble is the most sanction-proof. “We have found a paradoxical thing. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber – March 27, 2014) A week after President Vladimir Putin declared Crimea a new region of Russia, the peninsula has begun its Russian makeover. Ukrainian flags have been replaced by Russian tricolors on government buildings, military installations and public property. The ruble is now being used in daily transactions. Crimean residents are applying […]
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(Interfax – Minsk, March 26, 2014) OAO [open joint-stock company] Gazprom is not yet ready to say whether the discount on gas for Ukraine that was introduced at the beginning of the year would remain in effect in the second quarter of 2014. “Concerning the price of gas for Ukraine, it will be determined starting from the second quarter of […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – March 27, 2014) Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has announced that she intends to run in the country’s presidential election on May 25. Tymoshenko, 53, said last Friday that she was back “in every sense of the word” after receiving treatment in Germany for back injuries supposedly sustained while serving time in a Kharkiv […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Concorde Capital – March 27, 2014) Confectionary magnate Petro Poroshenko has pulled significantly ahead of his competitors as the leading presidential candidate for the May 25 vote, according to a poll released on March 26 that was conducted by Ukraine’s leading polling agencies: the Razumkov Center, Sotsis, KMIS and the Reytynh agency. Almost 25 […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – March 26, 2014) One of the more sober accounts of Ukraine’s plight by Peter Boone and Simon Johnson (a former Chief Economist at the IMF). Their key conclusion:: Without normal relations to Russia, the outlook for the country looks dire. “Russia controls many of the levers for Ukraine’s success. It is Ukraine’s largest trading […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Gevorg Mirzayan, special to RBTH – March 26, 2014) President Vladimir Putin’s address to both houses of Russia’s parliament last week signaled that Russia has had enough of what it perceives as Western double standards. The speech, alongside events in Crimea, herald the birth of a tougher approach to foreign policy. On Tuesday, […]
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KIEV, March 27 (RIA Novosti) – Ukraine is facing default if the country’s parliament fails to approve unpopular anti-crisis measures proposed by the government, Ukraine’s interim prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Thursday. “These decisions need to be approved, otherwise Ukraine will become bankrupt,” Yatsenyuk said in his address to the parliament on the economy which has slowed because of the […]
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MOSCOW, March 27 (RIA Novosti) – Fuel deliveries to atomic stations in Ukraine are continuing with no interruptions, the head of Rosatom said on Thursday. “Today is probably not the simplest time in cooperation between Russia and Ukraine, but there has been no interruption in fuel deliveries to Ukraine’s atomic stations,” company head Sergei Kirienko said, adding: “We always fulfill […]
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MOSCOW. March 27 (Interfax) – Russia is ready to continue working together with the United States on the settlement of the Syrian crisis, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bodanov said. “We are prepared to carry on the coordinated work with our American partners on the basis of the earlier agreements. The entire Geneva negotiating process was launched on the basis […]
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(Kremlin.ru – March 10, 2007) Munich VLADIMIR PUTIN: Thank you very much dear Madam Federal Chancellor, Mr Teltschik, ladies and gentlemen! I am truly grateful to be invited to such a representative conference that has assembled politicians, military officials, entrepreneurs and experts from more than 40 nations. This conference’s structure allows me to avoid excessive politeness and the need to […]
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(Interfax/Russia Beyond the Headlines – March 27, 2014) The job approval rating of Russian President Vladimir Putin has grown to 82.3 percent from 75.7 percent a week ago, sociologists of the All Russian Center for Public Opinion Studies (VTsIOM) have said following a recent public opinion survey. The sociologists have explained this result primarily by Crimea’s accession to Russia and […]
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[check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List :: 2014-#67 :: 26 March 2014 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 […]
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(The White House – Office of the Press Secretary – For Immediate Release – March 25, 2014) On the occasion of the third Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague, the United States and Ukraine today reaffirm their strategic partnership and emphasize the important role of nuclear nonproliferation in that relationship. The United States values its 20-year partnership with Ukraine on […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Oleg Sukhov – March 26, 2014) Russia’s takeover of Crimea is the first acquisition of foreign territory by a major power in more than a decade, and some observers, lawyers and scholars say it is difficult to justify the move based on past precedents. The Kremlin has described the joining of the strategic region to […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Iryna Shtogrin and Ron Synovitz – SEVASTOPOL, Crimea, March 25, 2014) Olha’s husband was a Ukrainian military specialist at the Belbek base near Sevastopol, Ukraine’s main air base in Crimea, until it was stormed by Russian troops on March 22. Now Crimea’s crisis is forcing the couple to choose the least bad option for their future. […]
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(The White House – Office of the Press Secretary – For Immediate Release – March 25, 2014) Gemeentemuseum Den Haag The Hague, The Netherlands Q Thank you, Mr. President. You’ve been criticized during this dispute with Russia as not understanding President Putin’s motivations. As recently as last month, you and others in your administration said you thought Putin was reflecting […]
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MOSCOW. March 26 (Interfax) – Despite the U.S. sanctions against Russia, the two countries are continuing to share intelligence concerning drug trafficking, says Russian Federal Drug Control Service chief Viktor Ivanov. “Exchange of information is under way,” Ivanov said in an interview with Interfax. Ivanov is among the Russians against whom the U.S. recently imposed sanctions because of the situation […]
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MOSCOW, March 26 (RIA Novosti) – Tensions between Moscow and Washington will not derail the two countries from signing an agreement on the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act or FATCA, Russia’s Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov said Wednesday. “It will be all right. We will undertake all necessary steps for our banks to provide information about American taxpayers,” Siluanov said. […]
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MOSCOW. March 26 (Interfax) – An overwhelming majority of Russians (87%) know that Russian President Vladimir Putin issued an address on the joining of Crimea to Russia on March 18, and 66% of them said they were impressed by it, shows a poll conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation. The poll, which surveys 1,500 respondents living in 43 regions of […]
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[check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List :: 2014-#66 :: 25 March 2014 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 […]
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(The White House – Office of the Press Secretary – For Immediate Release – March 24, 2014) 1. We, the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, the President of the European Council and the President of the European Commission met in The Hague to reaffirm our support for Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and […]
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(Stratfor.com – Geopolitical Weekly – George Friedman – Tuesday, March 25, 2014 – 03:08) As I discussed last week, the fundamental problem that Ukraine poses for Russia, beyond a long-term geographical threat, is a crisis in internal legitimacy. Russian President Vladimir Putin has spent his time in power rebuilding the authority of the Russian state within Russia and the authority of […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – March 24, 2014) Russian President Vladimir Putin named Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, his long-time trusted lieutenant and trouble-shooter, on March 21 to oversee the economic development of the Re public of Crimea. Crimea and the city of Sevastopol were formally incorporated into the Russian Federation as individual federation subjects on March 17. Putin then designated […]
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