(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Anna Andrianova and Andre Tartar – April 29, 2014) Russia faces a fifty-fifty chance of recession, the highest since Bloomberg started to track the measure, as the crisis in Ukraine raises the risk of further sanctions, according to a survey of economists. The probability of a recession over the next 12 months rose to 50 percent, […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Tom Balmforth – KYIV – April 25, 2014) U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said this week that Ukraine’s presidential election may be the most important in the country’s history. But you wouldn’t know it on the streets of Kyiv. With one month until polling booths open, the threat of war dominates headlines. Election leaflets are rare. Just one of the […]
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MOSCOW, April 29 (RIA Novosti) – Civil war in Ukraine could break out as soon as next month, the deputy director of research programs at Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defense Policy said Tuesday. “A civil war might kick off on May 26-27, as it is obvious that federalization supporters will not go anywhere and, apparently, will not be satisfied […]
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MOSCOW, April 29 (RIA Novosti) – Russia may recognize the results of upcoming elections in Ukraine on certain conditions, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Tuesday in an online interview with Russia’s Gazeta.ru. “It depends on what will precede them and how they are held,” Ryabkov said, responding to a question about whether Russia would recognize the results of […]
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MOSCOW, April 29 (RIA Novosti) – People rallying in the southeastern Ukrainian cities of Donetsk and Slaviansk are not separatists or terrorists, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Gazeta.ru Tuesday. “I can’t describe Slaviansk and Donetsk protesters as separatists,” Ryabkov said in an interview with the online newspaper Gazeta.ru. “These are people who demand that their ultimate rights be […]
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(opendemocracy.net – John Weeks – April 25, 2014) ‘Shock therapy’ was imposed on the post-Soviet world by the West, with catastrophic results. Now, we are planning on repeating that experiment in Ukraine. John Weeks is Professor Emeritus, School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London, and author of Economics of the 1%: How mainstream economics serves the rich, obscures […]
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MOSCOW, April 29 (RIA Novosti), Daria Chernyshova – Western sanctions against Moscow are unlikely to disrupt existing business ties with Russia, Renaissance Capital economist Oleg Kouzmin told RIA Novosti. “We do not think that sanctions would damage the existing business relations with Russia and its trading partners,” Kouzmin said. “Probably they may become an additional obstacle for attracting new foreign […]
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MOSCOW, April 29 (RIA Novosti), Victoria Matsneva – The second wave of US sanctions has scared neither Russian officials nor businesses, affecting only the assets controlled by the already-sanctioned businessmen Gennady Timchenko and brothers Arkady and Boris Rotenberg, as well as Bank Rossiya. None of the 17 companies targeted by the US sanctions trades its stock on exchanges and only […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Carl Schreck, Luke Johnson – April 28, 2014) When the United States last month imposed visa and financial sanctions on wealthy businessmen seen as close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader laughed it off, saying: “I think I need to stay away from them.” Putin might have a harder time staying away from the group of senior officials […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Nikolai Gorshkov, special to RBTH – April 29, 2014) Diplomatic efforts to solve the crisis in Ukraine cannot keep up with the rapidly deteriorating situation on the ground. After an initial burst of optimism that the diplomats might have negotiated a way out of the crisis, the great Geneva hope for peace in […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Indira A.R. Lakshmanan, Ilya Arkhipov and Kasia Klimasinska – April 29, 2014) The latest U.S. penalties against Vladimir Putin’s inner circle may provoke the Russian president into escalating the Ukraine crisis without crippling key sectors of his nation’s economy. The sanctions imposed by the Obama administration yesterday on seven officials and 17 companies won’t go unanswered, […]
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(mccain.senate.gov – Washington, D.C. – April 28, 2014) U.S. Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) today released the following statement on the Obama Administration’s latest round of sanctions against Russia and the situation in Ukraine: “The Obama Administration’s latest round of sanctions is days late and dollars short. While a unified U.S. and European response to Russia’s aggression […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – WASHINGTON – April 28, 2014) A fresh round of U.S. sanctions against top Russian officials amounts to little more than a “slap on the wrist” and will do little to halt the unrest in Ukraine, Republican lawmakers said. Members of Congress in recent days had called for the Obama administration to impose sanctions on key economic players in Russia, such […]
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… 37. Washington Post: Jackson Diehl, Ukraine’s wake-up call for NATO.
38. Bloomberg: Russian Billions Scattered Abroad Show Trail to Putin Circle.
39. Wall Street Journal editorial: The Russia Problem. Putin’s Kremlin is not a status quo power with a few historical grievances.
40. Paul Goble: Window on Eurasia: Is Putin at Risk of Being Overthrown by a Coup? …
(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, April 28, 2014) Many in Russia and the West have speculated that the combination of Vladimir Putin’s policies against Ukraine, Moscow’s increasing isolation internationally, and deteriorating economic conditions at home will eventually lead to a Maidan-style challenge to his rule. That is possible, of course, but a man identified as a former […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Henry Meyer, Irina Reznik – April 28, 2014) Outside a Moscow stadium one night in 2006, deputy central bank chief Andrei Kozlov was walking to his car after playing soccer when two men opened fire, pumping bullets into his head and neck and killing his driver. Days before the murders, the man leading Russia’s fight against […]
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BEREZHANY, Ternopol region. April 27 (Interfax) – Ukraine will start receiving reverse gas as early as October 2014, and will stop importing Russian gas after 2015, said independent parliamentary deputy and presidential candidate Petro Poroshenko. “We have negotiated an agreement and we will start receiving reverse gas from Slovakia in October, giving up Russian gas,” he told residents of the […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Peter Hobson – ALABUGA, Tatarstan, April 28, 2014) As Western politicians huffed and puffed about slapping additional sanctions on Russia, captains of big global business in the country showed no jitters as they met with top Russian officials Friday. Moreover, the only person to mention Russia’s clash with the West over Ukraine at a meeting […]
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MOSCOW, April, 28 (RIA Novosti) – An assassination attempt on Kharkiv mayor Gennady Kernes is further proof that it is impossible to hold elections in Ukraine at the moment, presidential candidate Oleh Tsarev told RIA Novosti Monday. “I think that the fact that politicians are being shot here is abnormal, it once again proves that at the moment it is […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Oleg Nemensky, special to RBTH – April 26, 2014) Who are the Banderovites and how are events in Western Ukraine 70 years ago linked to today’s Ukrainian conflict? Why is the role of Ukrainian nationalismin the overthrow of former president Viktor Yanukovych so controversial and why are many observers concerned about its influence […]
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(Interfax – Vladivostok, April 26, 2014) Many foreign investors that have long been working in Russia are not planning to leave the country and intend to make new investments in the Russian Federation despite Western sanctions, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov has said. “These are investors who have been working in Russia for many years and usually describe how […]
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… 27. New York Times: Sanctions Revive Search for Secret Putin Fortune.
28. Institute of Modern Russia: Mikhail Khodorkovsky: “No dictator will turn us, independently-thinking individuals, into enemies”
29. Atlantic Council: Russian Ex-Prime Minister: Widen Sanctions on Putin’s Elite Allies. Kasyanov Urges West to Urgently Sanction Hundreds of Russian Legislators, Ministers.
30. Financial Times: John Lloyd, Russian liberals warn of painful landing after pro-Putin euphoria. …
US Department of State Remarks on Ukraine John Kerry, Secretary of State State Department Press Briefing Room Washington, DC April 24, 2014 It has now been a week since the United States, the European Union, Russia, and Ukraine met in Geneva. We did so after a phone call between President Putin and President Obama, in which both leaders expressed a desire […]
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MOSCOW, April 25 (RIA Novosti) – Russian Minister of Economic Development Alexei Ulyukayev said Friday that a recent downgrade in Russia’s financial rating was expected and partially due to politically motivated decisions, but is not affecting investors’ behavior. International ratings agency Standard & Poor’s cut Russia’s rating to BBB- from BBB Friday and kept its outlook negative, amid the ongoing […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Peter Hobson – April 25, 2014) “The harvest will be partially or fully lost across 120,000 hectares of farmland that should be irrigated [by water from the canal],” Agriculture Minister Nikolai Fyodorov said Thursday, PRIME reported. Russia will compensate farmers for some of these losses, but not all, he said. The North Crimea Canal funnels […]
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(Interfax – Khabarovsk: April 25, 2014) Russia’s decision on the situation in Crimea has made it possible to avoid a heavy toll and developments like in eastern Ukraine, Russian Prime Minister Dmitriy Medvedev believes. While Medvedev was talking to the employees of the Khabarovsk shipbuilding plant, he was addressed by Pavel Shapoval, a resident of Crimea who has been working […]
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(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Concorde Capital – April 25, 2014) “The election process is ongoing and there are no laws to stop it,” says Andriy Mahera, deputy head of the CEC, as cited by KyvPost on April 25. “If the process of voting does not happen in some constituencies it will not affect the validity of election, and […]
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MOSCOW, April 25 (RIA Novosti) – The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague will begin a preliminary examination of the deadly anti-government riots in Ukraine that began in November, the ICC said in a statement Friday. “The Prosecutor of the ICC, Fatou Bensouda, has decided to open a preliminary examination into the situation in Ukraine in […]
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MOSCOW, April 25 (RIA Novosti) – The West is not only maintaining dividing lines in Europe, but is moving them toward Russian borders, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday. He said that Russia’s strategic goal is to create a single economic and humanitarian space from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, in which all countries in the European […]
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MOSCOW. April 25 (Interfax) – The Geneva deal stipulates equal commitments of the Ukrainian sides in the vacating of illegally occupied buildings in the southeastern regions and Kyiv, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. “Instead of disarming the Right Sector and other radicals, the Americans claim that everything that the Ukrainian authorities are doing is lawful but the buildings remain […]
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MOSCOW. April 25 (Interfax) – Peacekeepers may be deployed in Ukraine only with the UN Security Council permission, while the Federation Council has exercised its powers regarding the Armed Forces and allowed the Russian president to send troops to that country, Federation Council Defense and Security Committee Chairman Viktor Ozerov said in an interview with Interfax. There will be no […]
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MOSCOW, April 25 (RIA Novosti) – Russia is not discussing on a practical level sending an international peacekeeping force to Ukraine, Russian Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov told journalists Friday. Responding to a comment on a suggestion by Russian politicians to send an international peacekeeping force to Ukraine, Ushakov said it “wasn’t discussed on a practical level.” Earlier on Friday, Valeriy […]
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KIEV, April 25 (RIA Novosti) – Dozens of Russian special service agents have been detained in Ukraine, Sergei Pashinsky, the acting head of the Ukrainian presidential administration, said Friday. “We have detained dozens of agents of Russian special services and some of them have already testified,” Pashinsky said at a press briefing, adding that protesters in the east of the […]
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… 1. www.huffingonpost.com: Stephen Blank, Russia’s Lurch Toward Fascism.
2. Los Angeles Times: Jaak Treiman, Juris Bunkis and Daiva Navarrette, Vladimir Putin’s shopping list: Which country could be next? Plenty of Russia’s neighbors are worried. And Article 61 of Russia’s Constitution leaves him a world of room in which to maneuver.
3. The National Interest: Steven Pifer, John Herbst, and William Taylor, Does Putin Want a War? …
(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Concorde Capital – April 24, 2014) The Russian Energy Ministry has offered EU Energy Commissioner GYnther Oettinger to convene negotiations with EU and Ukraine on “natural gas issues” in Moscow on April 28, Interfax reported on April 23 citing a ministry representative. “We are ready to discuss with partners the place and time of […]
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(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Yulia Kudinova, special to RBTH – April 24, 2014) As Ukraine is tearing itself apart, it is also facing an artificially fuelled competition between Russian and Ukrainian, two languages that are nevertheless linguistically very similar. Benjamin Franklin once wrote: “Tongue double brings trouble”. That saying might have resonated with the members of Ukraine’s […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Joe Carroll, Nicole Gaouette and Julianna Goldman – April 23, 2014) Ukraine’s best hope for keeping furnaces and factories running through next winter is to store as much natural gas as it can after a U.S. aid pledge fell far short of the nation’s needs. Energy supplies have given Russian leader Vladimir Putin powerful economic leverage […]
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KIEV, April 24 (RIA Novosti) – A group of OSCE military observers is present at a Ukrainian checkpoint at the border with Russia that is surrounded by federalization supporters, the press center of the Ukrainian Security Service said Thursday. “An inspection team of OSCE military observers has been working on the site of the Luhansk border detachment over the past […]
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MOSCOW, April 24 (RIA Novosti) – Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced Thursday that Russia will conduct military drills in response to the developing situation in Ukraine’s southeast, where a special operation has targeted the country’s own citizens. “We are forced to react to such a development in the situation,” Shoigu said. “Starting today, exercises of battalion tactical groups from […]
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… 1. Atlantic Council: Intelligence Chief: 100 Russian Officers Are Leading Ukraine’s Uprisings. Ukrainian Security Agency Seeks to Arrest Russian Army Colonel Coordinating Subversion.
2. USAToday.com: Ukraine: Three Russian military intel officers detained.
3. The Daily Telegraph (UK): Russia ‘supported torture of Kiev politician.’ Ukraine’s acting president calls for ‘anti-terrorist operation’ against pro-Moscow separatists after body of a murdered town councillor is found.
4. The Daily Mail (UK): The face of Putin’s Ukrainian thugs: The sinister masked men behind eastern pro-Russian ‘people’s mayors’
5. Reuters: Ukraine’s leaders say have U.S. backing to take on ‘aggressors’ ….
(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Harriet Salem in Donetsk – April 23, 2014) Following an escalation of violence in eastern Ukraine over the past few days despite the four-way Geneva agreement reached between Russia, Ukraine, the US and EU, acting Ukrainian President Oleksander Turchynov said late April 22 that the government will re-launch its anti-terror operation in the region. […]
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(RFE/RL – rferl.org – April 22, 2014) Ukraine’s acting President Oleksandr Turchynov has called for the relaunch of an “antiterrorist” operation against pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine, citing the death of a politician from his party in the region. Turchynov said in a statement that two “brutally tortured” bodies were found near the rebel-held city of Slovyansk on April 22. One was that of […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, April 23, 2014) The best way to understand the events of the last several months, Stanislav Belkovsky argues, is to view them as a repetition of the August 1991 coup with only this difference: the leader of this coup is Vladimir Putin and the target of his radical shifts is the Putin […]
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(opendemocracy.net – Valery Kalnysh – April 21, 2014 Valery Kalnysh is editor of the Kommersant Ukraina newspaper There is a war on in Ukraine – and, moreover, it’s a pilot project for a new kind of war. History books we’ve read or lessons learned in school have given us a fixed image of what war is: the opposing sides send their tank […]
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(Window on Eurasia – Paul Goble – Staunton, April 22, 2014) It is a measure of just how worried the leaders of countries bordering Russia are about the possibility that Vladimir Putin will build on his Crimean Anschluss by moving against their states that even Alyaksandr Lukashenka feels the need to deny that Mensk is oppressing ethnic Russians and to […]
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… 30. New York Times: Under Russia, Life in Crimea Grows Chaotic.
31. Brookings Institution: Putin Trying to Make a Basket Case out of Ukraine. (interview with Strobe Talbott)
32. Washington Post editorial: President Obama, disregarding his own red line, dithers on Ukraine. …
The White House Office of the Vice President For Immediate Release April 21, 2014 Background Press Briefing on Vice President Biden’s Trip to Ukraine Aboard Air Force Two En Route Kyiv, Ukraine 2:00 P.M. (Local) MR. SPECTOR: Just a reminder at the top this is on background as a senior administration official. He will give some brief remarks at the […]
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The White House April 22, 2014 REMARKS BY VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN AT A MEETING WITH UKRAINIAN LEGISLATORS Rada Kyiv, Ukraine 10:03 A.M. (Local) THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. And I want to thank my colleagues for bringing me back home. For 36 years I sat in our legislature, and I used to actually have this seat in […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Kateryna Choursina – April 20, 2014) At least three people were killed in a clash in Slovyansk in eastern Ukraine, the nation’s Interior Ministry said, as a top security official accused Russia of exploiting the violence to prepare grounds for an invasion. Three “activists” were shot to death while on duty at a roadblock in an […]
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DONETSK, April 22 (RIA Novosti) – The leaders of pro-federalization protesters in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk will meet with representatives from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on Tuesday, a source from the federalist camp told RIA Novosti. The meeting is scheduled for 2:00 pm local time (11:00 GMT) in the Viktoria Hotel in Donetsk, […]
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