(Eurasia Daily Monitor – Volume 10, Issue 88 – Mairbek Vatchagaev – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – May 9, 2013) The role of the brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the Boston bombings is assessed differently on either side of the Atlantic. In the United States, few doubt they are terrorists and that the youngest son, Dzhokhar, who remains alive, […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – May 8, 2013) The leaders of some of Russia’s largest nongovernmental organizations raised their concerns about a Kremlin crackdown during a meeting Wednesday with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. Kerry, who was wrapping up a two-day visit, met with the NGO representatives at Spaso House, the Moscow residence of U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul, before […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – May 8, 2013) President Barack Obama’s administration has come under fire for its desire to speak off the record in some meetings with journalists. But what if the administration inadvertently breaks its own rules? That’s what appeared to happen this week when the U.S. State Department arranged a teleconference with journalists to discuss Secretary of […]
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(US Department of State – May 6, 2013) Special Briefing Office of the Spokesperson Senior State Department Officials Via Teleconference Washington, DC MODERATOR: Good morning, everyone. This is [Moderator]. Thank you all for hopping on this morning. We wanted the purpose of this call is to preview the Secretary’s trip to Russia. We’ll be leaving later this afternoon, as […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – May 8, 2013) When the parents of “Misha,” the enigmatic Ukrainian-Armenian convert to Islam who allegedly helped radicalize Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, moved to the United States in the 1990s, they likely could not have imagined that their son would eventually be accused of coaching a Muslim terrorist. Yury Allakhverdov, a […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 10, Issue 83 – Mairbek Vatchagaev – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – May 2, 2013) Why did Tamerlan Tsarnaev – one of the alleged April 15 Boston Marathon bombers who died in a shoot-out with police on April 18 – not demand an end to the bloodshed in Dagestan, but was instead interested in what happened […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 10, Issue 83 – Pavel Felgenhauer – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – May 2, 2013) Speaking to reporters after last week’s (April 25) lengthy, televised, national question-and-answer (Q & A) session, President Vladimir Putin declared he “was optimistic this tragedy [the April 15 Boston Marathon bombing] will facilitate greater security cooperation, benefiting both America and Russia” […]
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Subject: Jackson Diehl on Extremists From: John Evans <evansinusa@aol.com> Date: Thu, 2 May 2013 Jackson Diehl’s attempt to conflate the Chechen rebels with the Syrian rebels (“Extremists of Putin’s Own Making,” Washington Post op-ed, April 29, JRL #80) and then blame it all on the Russian President risks misleading readers into imagining that Russia, not Islamist extremism, is our current […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Ilya Arkhipov & Henry Meyer – May 1, 2013) Six blocks from the Caspian Sea, on Kotrova Street in central Makhachkala, sits a mosque being watched by undercover Russian agents charged with preventing acts of terror. As worshipers spill out into the streets, American investigators are watching now, too, as they try to reconstruct the events […]
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(RIA Novosti – WASHINGTON, May 1, 2013) US Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday that Washington supports Georgia’s aspirations to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), ambitions that Moscow has repeatedly warned will only inflame tensions in the South Caucasus. “We are very supportive of Georgia’s aspirations with respect to NATO and Europe,” Kerry said ahead of […]
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(Interfax – Brussels, May 1, 2013) In the Russian-US agreements on missile defence, transparency and confidence-building measures should be part of a package of solutions that could satisfy the Russian side, Russian Deputy Defence Minister Anatoliy Antonov has said. Antonov was in Brussels today answering journalists’ questions on proposals, allegedly contained in US President Barack Obama’s letter handed over to […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Ekaterina Zabrovskaya, RBTH – April 30, 2013) Russians in the United States believe the reaction of ordinary Americans to reports of a “Russian connection” in the Boston attack has shown how little people in the U.S. know about Russia and how weak Russia’s “soft power” is in the country. However, they do not […]
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(Interfax – May 1, 2013) The decision of the U.S. side to postpone the fourth stage of the adaptive program of missile defense increases the window of opportunities for reaching an understanding on missile defense that would suit both sides, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov has said. “The cancellation of the fourth stage is not the problem. Essentially nothing […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Liz Fuller – April 30, 2013) The Boston Marathon bombings have served to corroborate many observers’ previously unsubstantiated hunch that one reason for the Russian security services’ inability to contain the North Caucasus insurgency is that the various agencies responsible fail to share information among themselves. In this particular case, Daghestan’s Center for the Struggle Against […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 10, Issue 80 – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – Valery Dzutsev – April 29, 2013) On April 27, the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta published an article on the dead Boston bomber suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, based on information it received from the Russian security services. It cited officers of the Dagestani Center for Combating Extremism who said […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, April 29, 2013) Achieving agreements on the missile shield issue between Russia and the United States will bring the Russian-U.S. ties to a new allied level like during World War II, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. “We are convinced that doing it together – doing it together with the United States and the Europeans – would […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Mark Galeotti, special to RBTH – April 26, 2013) Looking for the ‘lone wolf’ terrorist has hitherto not been a major part of Russian security services’ strategy but after the Boston bombings, cooperation between the FSB and FBI is crucial. Mark Galeotti is Professor of Global Affairs at New York University. His […]
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(RIA Novosti – Fyodor Lukyanov – April 26, 2013) Fyodor Lukyanov is Editor-in-Chief of the Russia in Global Affairs journal, an authoritative source of expertise on Russian foreign policy and global developments – eng.globalaffairs.ru The case of two ethnic Chechens suspected of planting bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon last Monday has perplexed many analysts. Since the […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, April 29, 2013) The two brothers who carried out the horrific Boston bombing are not simply Muslims who were inspired by radical websites or Chechens who were continuing their struggle against Moscow by other means, as many in both Russia and the West have insisted, according to a Moscow analyst. Instead, Konstantin […]
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(Interfax- Moscow/Makhachkala, April 24, 2013) Dagestani Interior Minister Abdurashid Magomedov has denied allegations that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the two men suspected of committing bomb attacks at the Boston Marathon, started practicing radical Islam during his stay in Dagestan in 2012. “According to our information, Tamerlan Tsarnaev did come to Dagestan in 2012 in order to have his Russian passport […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, April 26, 2013) Anatoly Chubais, who oversaw Russia’s mass privatization drive in the 1990s, said on Friday he had always treated allegations that his US advisers at the time were operatives of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as rumors – until President Vladimir Putin said so out loud yesterday. “I often heard those claims and […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – April 25, 2013) As more evidence surfaces that the Boston bombing suspects were motivated by a radical version of Islam learned largely from jihadist websites, the monitoring of such websites may prove to be the starting point for closer cooperation between the U.S. and Russia on security issues. The surviving suspect of […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Olga Doronina, special to RBTH – April 25, 2013) The investigation into the Boston Marathon bombing has led U.S. authorities to the North Caucasus to look for links that the Tsarnaev brothers may have had with extremists there. Experts are convinced, however, that the brothers acted alone and had no links to any […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – George Feifer, special to RBTH – April 25, 2013) Author and longtime Russian expert George Feifer turns conventional wisdom on its head and explains the ways in which Russians are free and Americans are dully imprisoned. When Denis Diderot visited St. Petersburg at Catherine the Great’s invitation, the great philosopher and founder of […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anatoly Medetsky – April 25, 2013) ExxonMobil was a highlight of an investment conference in Moscow on Wednesday, attended by U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul, where speakers discussed the prospects of U.S. business in Russia. Organized by the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, the event sought to emphasize trade and investment despite political tensions between […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines/RIA Novosti – rbth.ru – Fyodor Lukyanov – April 24, 2013) Fyodor Lukyanov, the chairman of the Presidium of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, explains why the Magnitsky Act will have long-term consequences on U.S.-Russia relations. Conflicts associated with the Magnitsky Act are not going away any time soon. Congress will not drop the subject, […]
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(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, April 25, 2013) Officers of the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency operated as consultants to Anatoly Chubais, the Russian deputy prime minister who oversaw the privatization of the country’s economy in the early 1990’s, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday. “In Chubais’ entourage, it has now turned out, CIA officers worked as consultants,” Putin said […]
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(RIA Novosti – MAKHACHKALA, April 24, 2013) The Russian parents of the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings have agreed to visit the United States to assist in the ongoing investigation into the crime, a police source said on Wednesday. A team from the US Embassy in Moscow has arrived in Russia’s southern republic of Dagestan to speak […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Liz Fuller – April 22, 2013) The Daghestani wing of the North Caucasus insurgency has formally denied any role in the Boston Marathon bombings. In a brief statement posted on April 21 on the website vDagestan.com, its leaders stress that their primary enemy is Russia and they “are not engaged in military hostilities with the United […]
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(Center for American Progress – Cory Welt – April 22, 2013) Cory Welt is an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for American Progress and associate director of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs –www.ieres.org. In the days following the dramatic manhunt in Boston for surviving terrorism suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – April 23, 2013) As more details surfaced Monday regarding the complex family history of the Tsarnaev brothers, suspected of detonating deadly bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, the traditions of Caucasian families became a focus of inquiry into why Tamerlan and Dzhokhar may have turned into terrorists. The Tsarnaev […]
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(Interfax – MAKHACHKALA, Russia – April 22, 2013) Russia’s Federal Migration Service (FMS) has an uncollected Russian internal passport to the name of Tamerlan Tsarnaev in its files, a suspected co-perpetrator of the Boston Marathon bombings killed by police who tried to arrest him, a senior FMS official said. In July 2012, Tsarnaev “filed an application saying that he had […]
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(Eurasia Daily Monitor – Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 10, Issue 75 – Valery Dzutsev – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – April 22, 2013) The focus of the media on the suspected Boston bombers, the Tsarnaev brothers is fully justified, but understanding the wider context of the crime may be just as helpful (http://www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/223152/). Whatever the brothers’ personal experience was, if […]
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(opendemocacy.net – Susan Richards – April 23, 2013) Susan Richards is a non-executive director and founder of openDemocracy. She has produced a number of feature films and written a prize-winning book, Epics of Everyday Life, about the lives of ordinary Russians in the transition from communism. Lost & Found in Russia, Encounters in the Deep Heartland, which covers the period […]
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(RIA Novosti – Christopher Boian – WASHINGTON, April 22, 2013) A week ago, most Americans had never heard of the North Caucasus. But the region in southern Russia has abruptly filled TV screens in US homes after it became part of the Boston Marathon bombing story, and experts warn such speed reporting on a complex subject can distort as much […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Henry Goldman, Julie Bykowicz and Prashant Gopal – April 22, 2013) As investigators searched for a motive in the Boston Marathon bombings, the two brothers suspected in the attack emerged as markedly different personalities: the older moving closer toward Islamic fundamentalism, the younger socializing like a typical American college student. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, disrupted a service […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – April 22, 2013) The quest for answers to what possibly inspired Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev to plot two explosions near the finish line of the Boston Marathon exposes the complex and convoluted history of the North Caucasus, which for centuries has instigated violence across Russia. The Boston bombings have shown how boiling […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Jonathan Earle – April 22, 2013) Revelations that Moscow alerted Washington in early 2011 to suspicious behavior by one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, but did not provide additional information when asked, has raised questions about the effectiveness of bilateral counterterrorism cooperation. Though both sides have promised to focus on “all aspects of the […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW, April 21, 2013) Information about possible contacts between the Tsarnayev brothers – the suspected Boston bombers – with extremist grouping calling itself the Caucasus Emirate will be checked but so far there is no reliable evidence to that end, a source in Russian law enforcement has told Interfax. Earlier certain foreign media reported a possible connection between […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – April 21, 2013) MAKHACHKALA, Russia — As media outlets scramble to understand more about the suspected Boston Marathon bombers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, many relatives linked to the family in Makhachkala, Daghestan, are declining to talk to journalists. Nonetheless, the men’s father, Anzor Tsarnaev, did speak from an undisclosed location via telephone to RFE/RL’s Tom Balmforth […]
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(RIA Novosti – Carl Schreck – NEEDHAM, Massachusetts, April 22, 2013) Echoes of Chechnya are everywhere at this small suburban Boston homestead. Traditional ram’s wool hats hang on the walls; a computer monitor glows with the green of the Chechen flag; and the sapling of a medlar, an ancient fruit-bearing tree rare in America but common in the North […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – April 22, 2013) Russians want to ask President Vladimir Putin on his televised call-in show this week about whether they will face U.S. visa restrictions after the Boston bombing attacks and why he is cracking down on his critics. Those are among the 28 most frequently asked questions that have been submitted by telephone and […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – April 19, 2013) Two ethnic Chechens, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, are suspected of having perpetrated the Boston Marathon bombings on April 15 that killed three people and injured 170 others. As information accumulated — and confusion swirled — about them, RFE/RL Central Newsroom Director Jeremy Bransten sat down with Aslan Doukaev, director of RFE/RL’s North Caucasus […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Richard Solash, Claire Bigg – April 19, 2013) The young men identified as suspects in this week’s Boston Marathon bombing are brothers of ethnic Chechen origin with family ties in Central Asia, and at least of one of whom reportedly had taken an increased interest in Islam in recent years. The suspect who was captured alive […]
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(Interfax – MOSCOW/GROZNY/MAKHACHKALA. April 19, 2013) Brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who are suspected of committing the Boston Marathon bomb attack, are not on the Chechen or Dagestani law enforcement agencies’ wanted lists. “The Tsarnaev brothers are not on our databases of those wanted,” the Dagestani Interior Ministry told Interfax. “We have one Tsarnaev, who did not pay an administrative […]
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(Interfax Moscow, April 20, 2013) Russia has been unable to provide operationally relevant information on brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnayev (Tsarnaev). “Since the brothers Tsarnayev lived outside Russia, our special services were unable to provide our foreign partners with any operationally relevant information,” a source in the Russian special services told Interfax today. However, the source said that “joint work […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko, Jonathan Earle and Ezekiel Pfeifer – April 19, 2013) U.S. authorities have linked two Chechen brothers to the Boston bombings that killed three people and injured more than 170 this week, U.S. media reported Friday. The Russian Foreign Ministry told The Moscow Times that it was aware of the reports and looking into […]
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(Interfax – April 19, 2013) Internet users have tracked down an account in the social network VKontakte which allegedly belongs to a Boston bombing suspect. Links to the page which Boston Bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnayev ran in the network, have emerged on other social networks. There is a notice on Tsarnayev’s page saying that its host last visited it at […]
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(Interfax – MAKHACHKALA, April 19, 2013) An Interfax correspondent has managed to talk on the phone with a man introducing himself as Anzor, the father of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who are suspected of committing the Boston Marathon bomb attack on Monday. “I learned about the incident from TV. My opinion is: the special services have framed my children, because […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – April 19, 2013) The mother and widow of whistle-blowing Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky were in Washington on April 17, just days after the White House issued a blacklist of more than a dozen Russian officials implicated in Magnitsky’s prosecution and death in jail in 2009. RFE/RL’s Richard Solash spoke to Magnitsky’s mother, Natalia, at a reception […]
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