(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Stepan Kravchenko, Ilya Arkhipov and Henry Meyer – February 14, 2014) Even Vladimir Putin’s Russian critics are rallying around the president to revel in the country’s first Winter Olympics, dismissing western complaints about facilities, security and graft. As the competition in Sochi enters week two, Russia is swelling with pride over its first Olympics since Moscow […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Nicole Gaouette – February 14, 2014) If mounting U.S. frustration with Russia wasn’t clear enough after President Barack Obama blamed Moscow on Feb. 11 for the starvation of Syrian civilians, this week offered plenty of other signals. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told Congress that “an assertive Russia” poses a risk to the U.S. and […]
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WASHINGTON, February 13 (RIA Novosti) – With the eyes of the world trained on the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Americans’ opinions of Russia and its leader Vladimir Putin have reached their lowest point in 20 years, according to a survey released Thursday by the US pollster Gallup. Both Putin and Russia registered their highest “unfavorable” ratings – 63 percent and […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Michael Bohm – February 14, 2014) Michael Bohm is opinion page editor of The Moscow Times. Although Michael McFaul masterminded the “reset” between the U.S. and Russia, ushering in a welcome period of warmer relations, albeit short-lived, his ambassadorship to Moscow was doomed from the start. The sandy-haired Montana native fell right into the Kremlin’s […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – February 14, 2014) Russians disapprove of Ukrainian protesters who cast stones and bottles of incendiary liquid at the police, the Russian Public Opinion Study Center (VTsIOM) said. 55% of the respondents condemned the aggressive behavior of Ukrainian demonstrators; 26% admitted their dislike for radically minded Ukrainian opposition activists; 15% said they were disappointed and […]
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[“Russia accuses EU of seeking Ukraine ‘sphere of influence’” – Reuters – Gabriela Baczynska, Alexandra Hudson – February 14, 2014 – http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/14/us-ukraine-russia-eu-idUSBREA1D0PT20140214] Reuters covers tensions between Russia and the EU over Ukraine, including Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov bemoaning the prospect of an EU sphere of influence on Russia’s borders: Russia accused the European Union on Friday of seeking to […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Daryna Krasnolutska – February 14, 2014) German Chancellor Angela Merkel will host Ukrainian opposition leaders next week as protesters try to raise pressure on the government to step down and Russia accuses the U.S. and European Union of meddling in its backyard. Merkel will meet opposition leaders Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Vitali Klitschko, a former world heavyweight […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, February 14, 2014) Every historical period is symbolized by a specific event in a specific place when and where societies and their rulers demonstrate whether or not they are capable of responding to the challenges they face. Today, Liliya Shevtsova says, Ukraine is that place and that time not only for the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – D. Garrison Golubock – February 14, 2014) On Feb. 15, 1989, the last Soviet military formations departed from Afghanistan, leaving behind a country they had occupied for more than nine years and where more than 14,000 of their comrades-in-arms had died. Twenty-five years later, the Soviet Union has long since ceased to exist, and the […]
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Johnson’s Russia List :: 2014-#31 :: 13 February 2013 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 POLITICS 1. Reuters: Olympics-Ice hockey-U.S. v Russia far from David and Goliath […]
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(New Eastern Outlook – journal-neo.org – Martin Harris – February 13, 2014) Martin Harris, a freelance journalist and analyst based in the Eurasia region, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”. The recently leaked diplomatic exchange between United States Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasia Affairs Victoria Nuland and US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyat is more […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, February 13, 2014) Ukraine’s immediate future may be defined by the positions of Russia, Europe and the United States, but its long-term one depends on the nature of the relationship between those backing the Maidan and those in the southeastern portions of the country, according to a Moscow commentator. And that relationship […]
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(Valdai Discussion Club/Gazeta.ru – Fyodor Lukyanov – February 13, 2014) Fyodor Lukyanov is Chairman of the Russian council on foreign and defence policy, Editor-in-Chief of Russia in Global Affairs magazine, member of the Valdai Discussion Club. US Ambassador Michael McFaul attracted much more attention during his tenure in Moscow than any of his colleagues or predecessors. But his efforts as […]
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MOSCOW, February 13 (RIA Novosti) – Russia may have to spend up to $7 billion over the next three years to maintain infrastructure and venues around the Olympic host city of Sochi, Bloomberg news agency reported Thursday. Bloomberg cited unnamed planning officials as saying the government is not yet sure of the final bill for the Olympics partly because plans […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – February 13, 2014) Russia came 148th out of 180 countries on this year’s press freedom rankings from Reporters Without Borders, keeping the same spot that it occupied last year. France-based Reporters Without Borders said that the level of freedom of information violations throughout the world increased by 1.8 percent compared with 2012. Some of the […]
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(Interfax – February 12, 2014) Sergey Neverov, secretary of One Russia’s general council and State Duma deputy speaker has said that for the time being he does not consider both Russian protest leader Aleksey Navalnyy and his unregistered Progress Party (former People’s Alliance) serious political competitors. He made these remarks when speaking to journalists on 12 February, privately-owned news agency […]
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[Moscow Times – Todd Wood – February 13, 2014 – themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/dont-worry-about-us-fracturing/494439.html] Todd Wood, in a Moscow Times op-ed, writes that while the United States has used fracking to seize the lead in global petroleum exports, Russia has more reserves, and could expand oil field services. Unfortunately for Russia, the U.S. has taken the lead in hydraulic fracturing technology and is […]
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[“Russians ‘reveal their soul’ with love of figure skating” – USAToday.com – Kelly Whiteside – February 13, 2014 – usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/sochi/2014/02/12/winter-games-figure-skating-pairs-russians-love-gold-medal/5431649/] USA Today covers figure skating at the Sochi Olympics, including the special significance the sport holds for people of the host country: After a masterpiece of a free skate, love rained down on Russian pair skaters Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim […]
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[“Olympics: Ice Hockey: U.S. vs. Russia far from David and Goliath Tale” – Reuters – Frank Pingue – February 13, 2014 – reuters.com/article/2014/02/12/olympics-icehockey-miracle-era-idUSL2N0LG08420140212] Reuters covers Olympic Men’s Hockey, with a game between the United States and Russia coming up on Saturday. While different than the “Miracle on Ice” of 1980, the game is still “must-see”: This week’s Russia v United […]
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MOSCOW, February 13 (RIA Novosti) – Russia expects Ukraine to return to a process of integration with a Moscow-driven economics union stretching from Europe to the Pacific Ocean, a senior Kremlin official said Thursday. “We are counting on Ukraine’s return to the integration process,” presidential advisor Sergei Glazyev told an economic conference in Moscow. The Eurasian Union, to which Glazyev […]
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(Moscow Times – c – Anatoly Medetsky – February 13, 2014) Rresident Vladimir Putin on Wednesday held another meeting with Cabinet ministers to discuss the faltering economy, the latest ritual that might further diminish Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s stature. Putin started out by asking Economic Development Minister Alexei Ulyukayev to report on finding ways to give momentum to an economy […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, February 13, 2014) Ethnic clashes especially in the regions appear to have displaced political protests in Moscow as the dominant form of activism in the Russian Federation, a trend certain to have dangerous consequences given that the authorities are far less concerned about the former than the latter, according to Russia’s leading […]
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MOSCOW, February 12 (RIA Novosti) – Russia will increase oil production this year by 0.3 percent to 525 million tons and boost its natural gas output by 4.8 percent to 700 billion cubic meters, the country’s deputy energy minister said Wednesday. “We could increase gas production even more, but there are issues with storage, transportation and consumption,” said Kirill Molodtsov. […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Oleksander Andreyev – February 12, 2014) Oleksandr Andreyev is a PhD candidate at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London. He holds a BSc in Politics, followed by an MSc in Comparative Politics from the London School of Economics. Protest in Ukraine initially seemed to reveal a country sharply divided into the pro-Europe west […]
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Johnson’s Russia List :: 2014-#30 :: 12 February 2013 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 POLITICS 1. Moscow Times: Putin Revels in Sochi Spotlight as Olympic Criticism […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – February 12, 2014) The opposition and protestors continue to wage an increasingly effective media war against the incumbent Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. The latest video to surface on YouTube is entitled “I am Ukrainian” and is a heart felt message delivered by an attractive young Ukrainian woman in English. “We are civilised people, but […]
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KIEV, February 12 (RIA Novosti) – A Ukrainian judge who recently sentenced several political protesters to house arrest has been shot dead by unknown attackers, police said Wednesday. Alexander Lobodenko, a 34-year-old district court judge, was shot several times in the back by two assailants on a street near his home in central Ukraine late Tuesday night, the country’s Interior […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – February 12, 2014) 28% support President Viktor Yanukovych in the Ukrainian standoff and only 6% side with the opposition, the Public Opinion Foundation said after having polled 1,000 people in 320 cities and 160 villages on February 1-2. Some 36% denied supporting either of the conflicting sides. A total of 75% of the respondents […]
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(Interfax – Moscow, February 11, 2014) The head of the Russian Federation Council’s International Affairs Committee, Mikhail Margelov, has accused the European Union of employing double standards. Margelov told Interfax that during his work in PACE he and his colleagues from the Russian delegation acquired strong immunity to double standards in assessments of the same events that are used by […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Justin Lifflander – February 12, 2014) [Photos here http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/10-unlikely-candidates-to-replace-michael-mcfaul-photo-essay/494297.html] While U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul cited personal reasons for his departure, no one would dispute that his role as Washington’s top representative in Moscow was challenging. With thorny issues remaining on multiple fronts, chances are slim that relations will warm significantly between the two […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – February 11, 2014) International expansion is the new watchword for the Russian venture market’s movers and shakers. As the latest ranking of the country’s internet millionaires indicates, the winners are those who invest abroad. The magazine Sekret Firmy (meaning “company secret” in Russian) has conducted a study together with the BrandSpotter agency to […]
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MOSCOW. Feb 12 (Interfax) – The Federal Migration Service and the Economic Development Ministry have drawn up a law, which facilitates naturalization of foreign citizens, Kommersant wrote on Wednesday. The simpler naturalization procedure will be primarily granted to businessmen who invest at least ten million rubles in Russia and foreign alumni of Russian colleges and universities who work in Russia […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Yezhova – February 12, 2014) A slew of announced layoffs is rattling the domestic labor market, threatening to further undermine a weak economy. Russia’s two largest banks, state-owned Sberbank and VTB, have joined the country’s biggest carmaker, AvtoVAZ, in declaring significant staff reductions in the upcoming months. VTB Group disclosed last month that it […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Phoebe Taplin, special to RBTH – February 11, 2014) The tradition of literature exploring conflict in the Caucasus began with the great stories by Lermontov and Tolstoy, and is carried on by today’s writers: RBTH presents 5 contemporary authors, each with military experience and individual views on duty, violence and the casualties of […]
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(Interfax – February 12, 2014) This year’s first planning conference of Vigilant Eagle 2014, the command post antiterrorist exercise involving Russia, the United States and Canada, has begun in the city of Colorado Springs (the state of Colorado, the U.S.), Eastern Military District (EMD) spokesman Lt. Col. Alexander Gordeyev told Interfax-AVN on Wednesday. “The Russian side is represented at the […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – February 12, 2014) Ukraine’s opposition calls their allies in Rada to act on urgent return to 2004 Constitution. The leader of the Batkivschyna parliamentary faction Arseniy Yatseniuk said on February 11 that his party has asked all its opposition partners to support with 150 signatures the text of the Constitution of 2004 so that […]
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KRASNOYARSK, February 12 (RIA Novosti) – Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Wednesday dismissed as “utter nonsense” online rumors that the Russian armed forces are virtually non-existent. At a meeting with students in the Siberian city of Kransnoyarsk, Shoigu was asked to comment on online rumors that “there is nothing left, our army is a total wreck and we can […]
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MOSCOW. Feb 12 (Interfax) – Most Russians (74%) see no serious chance to investigate corruption at Oboronservice, Levada Center sociologists said. Some 41% of 1,603 respondents polled in 45 regions on January 24-27 presumed that Oboronservice and similar cases would be soft-pedaled. A third (33%) said scapegoats would be punished and senior officials would skip punishment, and only 11% expected […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – D. Garrison Golubock – February 12, 2014) A statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky or Iron Felix, a Bolshevik revolutionary and founder of the Cheka, the predecessor of the KGB, will not be restored to its erstwhile location on Lubyanskaya Ploshchad, the Moscow Duma’s committee on monuments announced Tuesday. “Restoration of the monument is impractical at the […]
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(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Anna Arutunyan – February 12, 2014) More than 14,000 Russians have been illegally prosecuted in the last three years, according to Prosecutor General Yury Chaika. “People are sitting in jail illegally for years,” RIA Novosti quoted Chaika as saying during a planned address before the State Duma, the lower house of parliament. According to Chaika, […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Oleg Sukhov – February 12, 2014) When Russian anti-government activists look over the border at the political standoff in Ukraine, they can not help but feel pangs of envy. While the anti-Kremlin protests that began in late 2011 sputtered and faded over the course of the year, with few tangible results, Ukraine’s Euromaidan movement has […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – SOCHI – February 12, 2014) President Vladimir Putin has relished his role as the host and driving force behind the Sochi Winter Games as media criticism over corruption and flawed facilities was replaced by praise from visitors and athletes. Despite seemingly ominous reports of construction blunders and foreign leaders being unable or […]
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[“Shape Up Sochi” – Wall Street Journal – Betsy McKay – SOCHI – February 11, 2014 – http://blogs.wsj.com/dailyfix/2014/02/11/shape-up-sochi/] The Wall Street Journal covers efforts to use the Sochi Olympics to encourage health and fitness among Russians. The Olympics are supposed to inspire people to shape up and go for their inner gold, right? In Russia, that’s a big “if.” A […]
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[“Russians Return to Religion, But Not to Church” – Pew Research – pewforum.org – February 10, 2014 – http://www.pewforum.org/2014/02/10/russians-return-to-religion-but-not-to-church/] The Pew Forum examines data on Russian religious trends. The number of Russians declaring an affiliation with the Russian Orthodox Church and other faiths has risen, but church attendance is low. Over the past two decades, since the collapse of the […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Harriet Salem and Graham Stack in Kyiv – February 11, 2014) Ukraine’s ruling Party of Regions is controversially deploying hired muscle to back up police units against opposition protestors. Nicknamed “titushki”, the activity of the hired hands is undermining the government’s already precarious legitimacy. bne spoke to a member of the titushki. There is […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, February 11, 2014) Even before he was chosen to lead the CPSU and hence the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev in December 1984 said he opposed the kind of megaprojects Soviet leaders had used up to then and favored instead more balanced development, a shift in attitude that informed his subsequent decision to block […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – February 11, 2014) The Communications and Press Ministry has submitted a draft bill to the government that would reorganize Russian Post and pave the way for the flotation of the company’s shares, Interfax reported Tuesday. The move is part of an overall strategy that would not only make Russian Post financially independent by 2018, but […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – February 11, 2014) Irina Rodnina, the famed figure skater who lit the Olympic flame at the Sochi opening ceremony, has said that a racially insensitive tweet sent from her account and featuring U.S. President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle was posted by hackers. The doctored – and, in the eyes of […]
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MOSCOW. Feb 11 (Interfax) – A senior Israeli diplomat has complained about an alleged upsurge of anti-Semitism in Ukraine. “In the last few years – I mean before this crisis – there was a decline in anti-Semitic sentiments in Ukraine. Now, of course, with the situation being as heated as it is, everything is bubbling over there,” Anna Azari, Foreign […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – George Feifer, special to RBTH – February 10, 2014) George Feifer is the author of many acclaimed books, including “Moscow Farewell” and “The Girl from Petrovka.” Thank you, Edward Snowden, for telling us how badly reform is needed. It would have been impossible without the knowledge you gave us. If Edward Snowden ever […]
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