KYIV. Aug 6 (Interfax) – The situation in Donetsk remained tense at 1 p.m. local time (2 p.m. Moscow time) on Wednesday but no more shooting can be heard and critical public services are running as usual, the Donetsk city council said. Specialists from Donetskgorgaz are repairing gas pipelines “damaged as a result of artillery fire in the Petrovsky and […]
» Read more
KYIV. Aug 6 (Interfax) – The situation in Luhansk remained critical as of the morning of August 6 as the city remained without power, water supply and landline and mobile communications, the press service for the Luhansk city council has reported. According to the press service, shooting continued in the city in the early hours of Wednesday. The majority of […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – August 4, 2014) With tensions between Russia and many Western countries mounting, some people think that Russian President Vladimir Putin is being unfairly painted in a bad light. In fact, they feel so strongly about this that they have come up with their own Twitter hashtag to make their case. Tagging their tweets with #blameputin, […]
» Read more
(RIA Novosti – Moscow, August 4, 2014) Moscow believes that Western countries will continue to exert pressure on Russia by means of sanctions, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has said. “I think, there is a real threat which one should not underestimate: that the itch of sanctions won’t end with this [i.e. the current sanctions]. They will scratch it […]
» Read more
KIEV, August 5 (RIA Novosti) – Ukrainian troops have reached the eastern cities of Donetsk and Luhansk and are getting ready to take them by storm, Ukraine Security Council representative Andriy Lysenko said Tuesday. “The main anti-terrorist operation forces, including territorial battalions, have reached these areas [outskirts of Donetsk and Luhansk]. It doesn’t mean that any storm has already started. […]
» Read more
[check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List JRL 2014-#169 :: Tuesday 5 August 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 JRL: russialist.org/funding.php 1. RIA Novosti: NATO Claims Russia Gathered 20,000 Troops on Ukraine […]
» Read more
(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Tim Ash, Standard Bank – August 5, 2014) On the front line in the Donbas both sides appear to be squaring up for the final push. Ukrainian forces have reportedly now encircled Donetsk, and all but encircled Luhansk, with the area now controlled by separatists shrinking by at least half since the latest offensive […]
» Read more
BRUSSELS, August 5 (RIA Novosti) – NATO Deputy Secretary-General Alexander Vershbow said Tuesday Russia had beefed up its troops along its border with Ukraine by some 20,000 soldiers. “Russia broke intl law w/ [with] no justification, invaded #Ukraine, backs separatists, now has ±20,000 troops on Ukraine’s E. border,” Vershbow wrote on his Twitter page. NATO has never looked for pretext […]
» Read more
… 4. Wall Street Journal: Conflict in East Ukraine Claims Civilian Lives in Rebel-Held Cities. Warfare Spreading into Rebel-Controlled Cities Risks Alienating Residents.
5. Reuters: Ukrainian city stocks up as a long siege looms. …
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexander Panin – August 4, 2014) The impact of the EU’s latest and harshest sanctions on Russia will be felt most keenly in the country’s economic sectors that are largely dependent on state-of-the-art Western technology, ranging from the extraction of hydrocarbons to civil aircraft production, analysts said. The European Union late last week officially approved […]
» Read more
MOSCOW, August 4 (RIA Novosti) – Russian scientists hope that the western sanctions, imposed on Russia over the crisis in Ukraine, will not impede the implementation of space projects, according to the director of the Lebedev Physical Institute Astro Space Center, Nikolai Kardashev. The scientist specifically hopes the sanctions will not affect the Millimetron space observatory mission – a high-sensitivity […]
» Read more
The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release August 01, 2014 Press Conference by the President [excerpt] James S. Brady Press Briefing Room THE PRESIDENT: Look, this is a common theme that folks bring up. Apparently people have forgotten that America, as the most powerful country on Earth, still does not control everything around the world. And […]
» Read more
(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Nataliya Kovalenko, Oleksiy Arunyan – August 02, 2014) Although the raging fighting and heated rhetoric in eastern Ukraine still command the headlines, the dispute between Kyiv and Moscow over Crimea simmers on and seems as intractable as ever. Russia annexed the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula in March, a move that Ukraine and most of the rest […]
» Read more
MOSCOW, August 4 (RIA Novosti) – Ukraine’s Defense Minister Valeriy Heletei claims that government troops are close to defeating independence militia in the southeast of the country, where Kiev has been conducting military operation since mid-April. “We will win very soon,” Heletei said in an interview with BBC. The minister added that he realizes that it will be a hard […]
» Read more
… 29. Defense News: After White House Meeting, Lawmakers Say Obama Won’t Send Lethal Arms to Ukraine.
30. Washington Post: Fareed Zakaria, The Rise of Putinism.
31. Financial Times: US diplomat Victoria Nuland faces questions over strategy.
32. Politico.com: Ben Judah, The End of Vladimir Putin. Could the war in Ukraine bring down the Kremlin?
33. Anders Aslund: RE: 2014-#166-Johnson’s Russia List/Patrick Armstrong.
34. Patrick Armstrong: DEADLY QUOTATIONS PART 2. …
(opendemocracy.net – Svetlana Bolotnikova – July 30, 2014) Svetlana Bolotnikova is a Russian journalist and correspondent for KavPolit, an online publication specialising in political developments in the Caucasus. Brother against brother The civil war in the south-east of Ukraine is in so many ways a repeat of the civil war in the region in the 1920s. But will there come […]
» Read more
(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Lara McCoy Roslof, RBTH – July 29. 2014) Lara McCoy Roslof, RBTH’s Executive Editor for the Western Hemisphere, writes about how seeing the news from a different social and geographical perspective reinforces the importance to news organizations of finding meaningful links between news stories and their target audience. North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Matthew Bodner – August 1, 2014) The West’s latest round of sanctions on Russia will not have much immediate impact on the county’s defense industry, but they do have the potential to strike a blow to Russia’s 23 trillion ruble ($646 billion) military modernization drive, analysts say. The European Union on Thursday formally banned the […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – August 1, 2014) The United Nations has not received any hard evidence that Russia supplied pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine with weapons, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said Thursday. “We were unable to get hard evidence of the supply of weapons,” Pillay said in comments carried by ITAR-Tass. Washington and Kiev have […]
» Read more
(Russia Beyond the Headlines Press Digest – rbth.ru – Sofia Savina, special to RBTH – July 31, 2014) RBTH presents a selection of views from leading Russian media on the latest developments in Ukraine, including statements by Russia’s ambassador to the UN, a summary of EU sanctions and the outlook for Ukraine’s economy. Novaya Gazeta The newspaper Novaya Gazeta features […]
» Read more
MOSCOW. Aug 1 (Interfax) – Metropolitan of Chernivtsi and Bukovina Onufry, the locum of the Kyiv Metropolia, has accused the Ukrainian military of pressuring Orthodox Christians in Donbas. “I have to state violations of the rights and freedoms of believers and interference in the work of parishes of the Donetsk diocese of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church by the militant contingent […]
» Read more
… 15. Reuters: Some Ukrainian rebels vent frustration with Putin.
16. Financial Times: Guy Chazan, A surreal week with the Donetsk rebels.
17. Moscow Times editorial: Separatists’ Faults May Give Putin a Way Out.
18. RFE/RL: Brian Whitmore, The Kremlin Floats An Exit Strategy. …
(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Charles Recknagel – July 30, 2014) The latest round of EU and U.S. sanctions over Ukraine will restrict Moscow’s access to what Russia arguably needs most: Western financing and new technology. Here are five things to know about the sanctions and their impact. How much could the sanctions hurt Russia? This batch of sanctions comes at […]
» Read more
(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Sofia Savina, special to RBTH – July 30, 2014) RBTH presents a selection of views from leading Russian media on the latest developments in Ukraine, featuring widespread reaction to the imposition of yet another wave of sanctions against Russia by the U.S. and the EU, as well as news of Russian aviation experts’ […]
» Read more
(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Brian Whitmore – July 30, 2014) Sometimes it’s a good idea to pay attention to what Andrei Kolesnikov writes. The “Kommersant” columnist is one of the Kremlin’s anointed court scribes and is often described as President Vladimir Putin’s favorite journalist. Ben Judah, author of “Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell Out Of Love With Vladimir Putin,” recently […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times editorial – themoscowtimes.com – July 31, 2014) Russia may finally have a pretext for bailing out on Ukrainian separatists. But the pretext is not sanctions – it’s ethics. Still, the idea will be highly difficult for President Vladimir Putin to transmit, as there are few people who can take the moral high ground in the Russian establishment. Putin, […]
» Read more
(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Kira Egorova, RBTH – July 30, 2014) A new survey shows that the number of Russians concerned about economic restrictions imposed by the West is steadily decreasing A new poll from the Levada Center has revealed that Russians are becoming less afraid of sanctions. The most recent survey, conducted between July 18-21 after […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Anna Dolgov – July 31, 2014) As rhetorical sallies between Russia and Ukraine get increasingly bitter, the Ukrainian media watchdog agency has urged citizens to refrain from comments to Russian journalists, whom it accused of circulating brazen lies and distortions. “Every day, informational provocations by Russian journalists are becoming more impudent,” the Ukrainian Television & […]
» Read more
Subject: 2014-#165-Johnson’s Russia List – Comments on comments/Re Lyashko Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 From: xxx I feel compelled to say something about the comments displayed at the top of today’s JRL. Recommending that readers be left to “make up their own minds,” when there is such a paucity of material available in the U.S. media that departs from the […]
» Read more
[check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List JRL 2014-#165 :: Wednesday 30 July 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 JRL: russialist.org/funding.php 1. Interfax-Ukraine: Klimkin: Conflict in Ukraine the most serious since Cuban […]
» Read more
… 31. Paul Goble: Window on Eurasia: Russians Scrambling to Explain Why People in Eastern Ukraine Haven’t Flocked to Secessionist Banners.
32. Jamestown Foundation Eurasia Daily Monitor: Ukrainian Ruling Coalition Breaks up, Early Elections Loom.
33. Moscow Times: Ukraine Bans Russian Films for Distorting Historical Facts.
34. Reuters: Wall Street struggles to comply with new US sanctions on Russia.
35. Center for Strategic and International Studies: Anthony H. Cordesman, The Downing of the Malaysian Airliner: Avoid Rushing to Judgment. …
(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, July 29, 2014) As the Ukrainian military closes in on Moscow-backed forces in southeastern Ukraine, Russian commentators are scrambling to explain why the Russian-speaking population in that region have not flocked to the banners of the secessionists in Donetsk and Luhansk. Not surprisingly, these commentators have not focused on the facts that […]
» Read more
(Eurasia Daily Monitor: Volume 11, Issue 137 – Oleg Varfolomeyev – Jamestown Foundation – jamestown.org – July 28, 2014) The majority coalition in Ukraine’s unicameral parliament has formally dissolved. This should make it possible for President Petro Poroshenko, who was himself elected (on May 25) in early elections, to call early parliamentary elections. His party may win, according to opinion polls, while the […]
» Read more
(Voice of America – Catherine Maddux – July 25, 2014) Just hours after reports that Malaysian Airlines flight 17 had been shot down over eastern Ukraine, the stark reality that 298 civilians from nearly a dozen nations had just become the latest victims in a Russian-backed separatist movement came as somewhat of a jolt. All were dead. Locals reported bodies […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – July 29, 2014) Exactly one year ago, President Vladimir Putin went to Ukraine for an official two-day visit to celebrate the 1025th anniversary of the Christianization of Kievan Rus, an occasion that, according to Putin, reminded Russia and Ukraine of their “spiritual unity and common roots.” Putin participated in a service on […]
» Read more
MOSCOW. July 29 (Interfax) – Defense Minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Igor Strelkov has banned to shoot at Ukrainian servicemen willing to surrender, the DPR official mission in Russia said. “Following ideas of humanity for the sake of ceasing bloodshed and saving lives of Ukrainian servicemen sent forcibly to the area of fratricidal slaughter, I order all […]
» Read more
KIEV, July 29 (RIA Novosti) – Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, who is on an official visit to the United States secured its backing to strengthen Ukraine’s defense capabilities, restoring the country’s economy and stabilizing the situation in Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday. “The US Vice President emphasized the United States’ absolute support to the peace […]
» Read more
KYIV. July 29 (Interfax) – The issue of granting Ukraine a special partner status is currently being discussed in the United States, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said. Readiness to provide further assistance to Ukraine exists in the Congress and Senate and the U.S. already provides such help, Klimkin said in an interview with Voice of America during his working […]
» Read more
… 4. Reuters: In Ukraine’s east, Soviet-style economy withers under onslaught.
5. Bloomberg: Stepan Kravchenko, My Captivity in Ukraine Shows Amateurs Succumb to Hatred.
6. CBSNews.com: Interview with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. (re Putin) ….
(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Concorde Capital – July 28, 2014) If Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko launches a loyal political party to compete in the early parliamentary elections expected in October, it would finish in fifth place, according to a poll conducted of 2,040 respondents between July 16 and 23 by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology. The most […]
» Read more
(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Graham Stack in Gorlivka, Ukraine – July 28, 2014) In the evening of July 27, Gorlivka, an industrial town of around 250,000 about an hour’s drive from the city of Donetsk, was shuddering as Ukrainian government forces launched an attempt to recapture it from Russian-backed separatist rebels, who had seized control of key administrative […]
» Read more
(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Alexey Eremenko – July 28, 2014) If President Vladimir Putin is facing the biggest international backlash of his 14-year reign, it is because he has – in the eyes of the West – violated the one great taboo of the post-9/11 world: supporting terrorism. The problem is, viewed from a Russian perspective, Putin has done […]
» Read more
(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Stepan Kravchenko – July 27, 2014) In eastern Ukraine, one text message can turn you into an enemy. In my case, it was sent to my father. “Talked to Borodai at night,” it said about an interview I had with a rebel leader. “So, you are Borodai’s little friend,” concluded the camouflaged man reading my Nokia. […]
» Read more
(Interfax – July 25, 2014) The sanctions introduced by the European Union against Russia will not force Moscow to change its policy on the situation in Ukraine, Russia’s permanent representative to the European Union Vladimir Chizhov has said, privately-owned Interfax news agency reported on 25 July. “This is incorrect logic, to think that sanctions can force, in this case Russia, […]
» Read more
1. Wall Street Journal: After Flight 17 Crash, Agony, Debris and Heartbreak in Ukraine Villages. Villagers Near Malaysia Airlines Crash Site Feel Abandoned and Overwhelmed.
2. News Corp Australia Network: Face to face with the Russian-backed rebels in Eastern Ukraine.
3. The National Interest: Thomas Graham, America Needs a Real Russia Policy. …
(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Alastair Gill, RBTH – July 21, 2014) RBTH asked Russians of various ages and backgrounds, living both in Russia and abroad, for their opinions on the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 disaster, including who they thought was responsible for the crash and how the events are being reported in the media. Mikhail, 80 – […]
» Read more
(RIA Novosti – Ekaterina Blinova – July 25, 2014) Praising the ruthless military operation by Kiev against both armed rebels and unarmed civilians, American neocons have also been inciting Washington to launch wide-raging economic warfare against Russia in recent months. Thus, unsurprisingly, when the Ukrainian government released information on the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 catastrophe, the US media hastened to […]
» Read more
[check back for updates, including more links; links also posted to facebook and twitter] Johnson’s Russia List JRL 2014-#161 :: Thursday 24 July 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 JRL: russialist.org/funding.php 1. Valdai Discussion Club/Gazeta.ru: Fyodor Lukyanov, Going It Alone 2. RIA Novosti: Donetsk Commander […]
» Read more
(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Concorde Capital – July 24, 2014) EU Energy Commissioner GYnther Oettinger opposes sanctions on Russian natural gas and oil but doesn’t rule out sanctions on energy technology and equipment, he told a July 23 press conference in Brussels, as reported by the UNIAN news agency. “I always spoke against including energy supplies of Russian […]
» 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