[“In 2015, Vladimir Putin may witness his empire’s death knell” – Strobe Talbott – Reuters – Dec. 16, 2014] Strobe Talbott predicts that a third Chechen War could break out in 2015, sounding the death knell for Russia’s current geographic configuration. Indeed, Talbott comments that Russia could break apart by the end this century, and that the policies of Russian President […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – October 30, 2014) A fire has swept through the oldest movie theater in Ukraine’s capital Kiev during the showing of an LGBT movie, ravaging the building in what witnesses described as a likely arson attack. None of the 100 or so people who attended the screening Wednesday night appeared to have been […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexey Eremenko – October 28, 2014) Moscow will not join the U.S. effort to thwart the Islamic State terrorist group until Russian-American relations improve, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said this weekend. The big question, however, is whether Russia is in fact in a position to offer any substantial aid to the anti-jihad campaign – […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – moscowtimes.com – Allison Quinn – October 22, 2014) Nearly a quarter of Russians believe that the United States poses a bigger terrorist threat to their country than radical Islamists, a survey published Tuesday showed. Twenty-two percent of respondents to the poll by the state-run All-Russia Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM), titled “Terrorist Threats Against Russia: New Sources,” […]
» Read more
Subject: Book announcement Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2014 From: GORDON HAHN <gordon-hahn@sbcglobal.net> My most recent book – The Caucasus Emirate Mujahedin: Global Jihadism in Russia’s North Caucasus and Beyond – has been published by McFarland Publishers. It is available for purchase from the publisher and Amazon. The Caucasus Emirate Mujahedin: Global Jihadism in Russia’s North Caucasus and Beyond Gordon M. […]
» Read more
(Interfax – Moscow, October 19, 2014) First deputy prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk people’s republic Andriy Purhin [Russian: Andrey Purgin] rejects German intelligence allegations of militia members’ involvement in the crash of the Malaysian Boeing, suggesting that Ukrainian troops may have shot down the airliner in error, mistaking it for a reconnaissance aircraft. “These allegations against us make no […]
» Read more
MOSCOW. Oct 9 (Interfax) – Only 13% of Russians are aware of the existence of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and 54% learned about it during a poll held by the Public Opinion Foundation. Another 26% of 1,500 respondents polled in 43 regions on September 28 had heard something about the ISIL, and 7% failed to […]
» Read more
(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Michael Winfrey – October 9, 2014) When the Islamic State commander known as “Omar the Chechen” called to tell his father they’d routed the Iraqi army and taken the city of Mosul, he added a stark message: Russia would be next. “He said ‘don’t worry dad, I’ll come home and show the Russians,’” Temur Batirashvili said […]
» Read more
MOSCOW, October 1 (RIA Novosti) – There is an increasing risk of radicalization among Muslim youth in Russia, Russian News Paper Kommersant reported on Wednesday. A large group of Muslim youth attacked a police bus on September 26, as the police arrested a man, who drove into an officer, after being told to move his car, parked in a no-parking […]
» Read more
(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Nikolai Holmov, OdessaTalk – September 10, 2014) Today saw the release of the preliminary findings of the downing of the MH17 flight over eastern Ukraine. To be blunt, these preliminary findings confirming very much what everybody suspected – no crew error, no mechanical failure, no flying in unauthorised airspace etc. “Based on the preliminary […]
» Read more
(Business New Europe – bne.eu – September 9, 2014) The last minutes of the MH17 flight downed over East Ukraine July 17 were not recorded by NATO Awacs “eye in the sky” planes, according to Germany’s Der Spiegel. As a result, the German government has no “certain knowledge” that the plane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile, the government […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Allison Quinn – September 5, 2014) As the NATO summit gets under way in Wales and world leaders put on a united front against the growing threat posed by radical terrorist organization the Islamic State, continued bickering between Russia and the West over events in Ukraine threatens to give the “apocalyptic” group carte blanche to […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – September 2, 2014) On the 10th anniversary of the Beslan terrorist attack in which more than 330 people died, a poll revealed Monday that fewer Russians think authorities mishandled the crisis than in 2004. The poll, conducted by the independent Levada Center from Aug. 22 to 25, showed a less critical attitude toward the authorities’ […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – September 1, 2014) The children who set off for their first day of school 10 years ago in the small Caucasus town of Beslan, North Ossetia, will graduate from high school this coming academic year – at least, those who survived will. On Sept. 1, 2004, a group of 32 armed terrorists […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Allison Quinn – September 4, 2014) Members of the Islamic State, a violent group of extremists presently terrorizing Iraq and Syria, have released a video threatening President Vladimir Putin and vowing to wage war in Russia’s restive North Caucasus. Message to Putin A video released by Al Arabiya and reportedly filmed in a seized airport in […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – August 8, 2014) Ukraine has claimed that pro-Moscow separatists downed Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 after mistaking it for a Russian Aeroflot plane that they supposedly wanted to shoot down to provide Moscow with a pretext for invading Ukraine. The latest theory in an array of conflicting claims about the possible causes of […]
» Read more
(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, July 24, 2014) Tsar Aleksandr III famously said that Russia has only two allies – its army and its fleet – but now, according to Rashit Akhmetov, the editor of “Zvezda Povolzhya,” Vladimir Putin is down to only one – Moscow television with its ability to shape and direct Russian opinion. In […]
» Read more
MOSCOW, July 24 (RIA Novosti) – The Russian Defense Ministry has labeled Ukraine’s claim that two Su-25 attack aircraft were shot down in eastern Ukraine from Russia as “hogwash.” On Wednesday, independence forces in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region said they downed two Su-25s. Later in the day, a spokesman from Ukraine’s National Security information center, Andriy Lysenko, said during a […]
» Read more
KYIV. July 24 (Interfax) – Ukraine has not accused Russia of shooting down Ukrainian military planes in the military operation area in the eastern part of the country but only suggested it as one of the theories of the Wednesday incident, Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council spokesman Andriy Lysenko said. “We haven’t accused anyone yet,” Lysenko said at a […]
» Read more
MOSCOW, July 24 (RIA Novosti) – A leader of the independence supporters in the self-proclaimed People’s Republic of Donetsk, Commander of the Vostok Battalion Alexander Khodakovsky, denied having told Reuters that militia forces possessed Buk missiles when the Malaysia airliner crashed in the region, RT television channel reported Thursday. “We were discussing theories but one simple phrase was cutting throughout […]
» Read more
(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Marina Starodubtseva, Nikolai Litovkin, RBTH – July 22, 2014) The Boeing 777 tragedy, which claimed the lives of 298 people, has seriously changed the course of the political game surrounding Ukraine. We asked the leading Russian experts to assess how the political situation changed after the events of July 17 and how relations […]
» Read more
MOSCOW. July 22 (Interfax) – Moscow is satisfied with the southeastern Ukraine militia giving flight recorders of the crashed plane to Malaysian representatives and expects they will be transferred in the future to the international expert group under the aegis of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the Russian Foreign Ministry posted a statement on its website. “We express satisfaction […]
» Read more
(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Henry Meyer, Irina Reznik, Ilya Arkhipov – July 21, 2014) Russia’s richest businessmen are increasingly frantic that President Vladimir Putin’s policies in Ukraine will lead to crippling sanctions and are too scared of reprisal to say so publicly, billionaires and analysts said. If Putin doesn’t move to end the war in Ukraine in the wake of […]
» Read more
[featured image is file photo] Subject: FW: new post on Russian guilt Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2014 From: Anders Aslund <AAslund@PIIE.COM> David: Another version of the same evidence. Best, Anders From: paul roderick gregory [pgregory@stanford.edu] Sent: Saturday, July 19, 2014 3:27 PM To: Anders Aslund; Gregory Paul Subject: new post on Russian guilt http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2014/07/19/what-more-smoking-guns-are-needed-for-mh17-the-worlds-first-sam-terrorism/ Forbes.com July 19, 2014 Here Are […]
» Read more
[featured image is file photo] Subject: The truth about MH17 Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2014 From: Anders Aslund <AAslund@PIIE.COM> David: I hope you will lead with this excellent SBU video with English text next time. You can hardly get a better view of the reality of the MH17. http://www.sbu.gov.ua/sbu/control/en/publish/article?art_id=129088&cat_id=35317 Best, Anders [note from JRL web editor: the article linked to […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – July 21, 2014) President Vladimir Putin called for international access to the crash site of a Malaysian airliner in rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine, while the leaders of the U.S. and EU nations accused him of failing to back up his words with action and warned of additional sanctions when an EU panel convenes […]
» Read more
MOSCOW, July 19 (RIA Novosti) – Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin compared Washington’s hasty conclusions on the cause of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing-777 crash in Ukraine to its statement on Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction made years ago. “The White House has established the guilty even before the investigation of the Boeing accident. Earlier, the White House […]
» Read more
MOSCOW. July 18 (Interfax) – Russian President Vladimir Putin believes Ukraine is responsible for the Malaysia Airline plane crash on Thursday. “Definitely, the state in whose airspace this has happened bears responsibility for this terrible tragedy,” the Russian chief of state said late on Thursday night at a conference on economic issues. He proposed to start the conference with a […]
» Read more
MOSCOW, July 16 (RIA Novosti) The pause in NATO’s collaboration with Russia in fighting terrorism and drug trafficking because of Moscow’s position on the Ukrainian crisis “punishes” primarily the people of the involved territories and points out the shortsighted approach of a range of Western countries, Ilya Rogachev, director of the department of new challenges and threats at the Russian […]
» Read more
(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Concorde Capital – July 9, 2014) Terrorists with the Donetsk People’s Republic acknowledged that they received weapons and military hardware from Russia in a video released on the Internet on July 8 in which they discuss this support with Sergei Kurginian, a Kremlin propaganda chief, as identified by the Ukrayinska Pravda news site. The […]
» Read more
(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 11, Issue 119 – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – Paul Goble – July 1, 2014) Ukraine’s intelligence service has identified five centers within the Russian Federation where Moscow is recruiting and training mercenaries and diversionists to work against Ukraine in the eastern portions of that country and perhaps further west as well (Newsru.ua, June 28). Even more worrisome, […]
» Read more
(Interfax – Moscow, June 21, 2014) Terrorism, which is the most dangerous threat in the Middle Eastern region, could lead to a new wave of collapse of states, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov announced following his visit to Saudi Arabia. According to Lavrov, during his meetings with the leadership of the kingdom, the conflicts in Syria, Libya and Iraq, as […]
» Read more
(Interfax – June 17, 2014) First deputy director of the Federal Security Service (FSB), Sergey Smirnov, has expressed hope that the events in Ukraine will not disrupt cooperation between the Russian and US security services, privately-owned news agency Interfax reported on 17 June. “We have always been cooperating, though sometimes, when some events are taking place, cooperation calms down. We […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber – May 29, 2014) Amid deadly clashes between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian security forces in eastern Ukraine, reports that militants from the Russian republic of Chechnya have joined the insurgents have been buzzing on Russian social media for weeks. As videos and photos purportedly showing Chechen militants in Ukraine emerged on the web, […]
» Read more
MOSCOW. May 3 (Interfax) – Russia has effectively lost influence over self-defense forces in Ukraine and cannot settle the situation on its own, Russian President’s Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said. “Western sponsors (of the Kyiv authorities) are making a reservation all the time that self-defense forces in the southeast of the country are armed and show armed resistance. From now […]
» Read more
(Voice of America – April 14, 2014) The escalating situation in Ukraine appears to be on the verge of armed conflict as Acting President Oleksandr Turchynov asked the United Nations Monday to send peacekeeping troops to the east of the country, where pro-Russia militias have seized government buildings and blocked major highways with impunity. Geoffrey Pyatt has served as United […]
» Read more
(RIA Novosti – April 10, 2014) The allegations that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) declined to provide its American counterparts with comprehensive information about Tamerlan Tsarnayev, one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, is another manifestation of “anti-Russian hysteria”, Igor Korotchenko, the editor in chief of the Natsionalnaya Oborona (National Defence) magazine and a member of the public council […]
» Read more
(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 […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova, Ivan Nechepurenko – SOCHI – February 11, 2014) Security concerns over terrorist attacks have declined since the Sochi Winter Olympics kicked off over the weekend, and visitors say they have not been inconvenienced by security measures despite the presence of thousands of law enforcement officers. The issue of security dominated international headlines in […]
» Read more
KIEV, February 9 (RIA Novosti) – Ukrainian security agents are on high alert following reports of planned explosions in the country that could cause mass casualties, the national security service said Sunday. A warning has been issued concerning high-risk facilities across Ukraine, including nuclear and hydro power plants, international airports, railway stations and bus stations, cross-country pipelines and weapons storage […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – February 6, 2014) More than half of Americans think that a terrorist attack is likely at the Sochi Winter Olympics, set to open Friday, despite assurances by the White House that the Games will be safe, a recent poll indicates. Fifty-seven percent of respondents said they thought a terrorism act at the […]
» Read more
(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – February 4, 2013 – Ilya Arkhipov and Stepan Kravchenko) The Sochi Olympics, designed to trumpet the strength of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, also shines a light on its weaknesses. As skiers, hockey players and figure skaters arrive this week at the games that cost about $50 billion, the North Caucasus region remains unruly more than 14 years […]
» Read more
MOSCOW, February 3 (RIA Novosti) – Holding this month’s Winter Olympics in the Russian city of Sochi and developing resorts in the neighboring North Caucasus region risk increasing tensions in the already unstable area, a research group has warned in a report. The International Crisis Group presented a new study Monday titled “Too Far, Too Fast: Sochi, Tourism and Conflict […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova – February 3, 2014) Amid unprecedented security measures by the authorities to secure Sochi for the Winter Olympics, observers have expressed concerns that other cities in Russia have been left unprotected, with law enforcement personnel and technical equipment needed to prevent terrorist attacks having been concentrated in the Olympic capital. Some Russian regions, […]
» Read more
(Interfax – January 28, 2014) The security of daily life in Sochi ahead of the Winter Olympics is ensured in line with the global standards, Russian Minister of Civil Defense, Emergencies and Natural Disasters Vladimir Puchkov said. “The Olympics is a global event that determines our country’s prestige. Ensuring the security of the Olympics is the most important task for […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova – January 23, 2014) As the U.S. expressed concern over the safety of the upcoming Winter Olympic Games in Sochi and offered to send its own warships to assist in case of a terrorist threat, observers said that cooperation between U.S. and Russian security agencies on the matter is not much more than […]
» Read more
(Interfax – January 23, 2014) The security threats facing next month’s Winter Olympic Games in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi are not much more serious that those at the Olympic Games in other countries. “Frankly, I don’t think that the threat is greater at the Sochi Olympics than at other Olympics in other countries. We live in a […]
» Read more
MOSCOW, January 22 (RIA Novosti) After last year’s explosions in the southern Russian city of Volgograd, the majority of Russians doubt that the authorities can protect them from new terrorist attacks, an independent pollster said Tuesday. According to a poll conducted by Levada Center, only 29 percent of Russians are convinced that the authorities can protect them from terrorist […]
» Read more
MOSCOW. Jan 21 (Interfax) – The “anti-terrorist” package of bills will not restrict citizens’ rights and is aimed at preventing the financing of organized crime, Irina Yarovaya, chairman of the State Duma committee on security and corruption prevention, said. “Our logic is to propose additional measures for ensuring collective security measures. We want to disarm terrorists and deprive them of […]
» Read more
MOSCOW. Jan 21 (Interfax) – A total of 78% of Russian citizens think that the issues of terrorism should be resolved solely by liquidating terrorists, the All-Russia Public Opinion Research center (VTsIOM) said, citing a poll held in January. In 2002, 70% of respondents shared this stance. Only 15% of Russians think that it is necessary to negotiate with terrorists, […]
» Read more