One of the most vocal champions of global “interdependence” in international affairs … has warned that the United States and the world should take Russia “much more seriously.” ….
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“… In addition to a rare joint statement … Trump and … Putin connected numerous times over the past several weeks according to public reports. These developments stand out … [T]ies between Moscow and Washington have long been frozen in place. [Recent developments are] even more surprising given the Kremlin’s continued actions in places like Syria and Ukraine. The dual […]
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“… Justice … dropped its case against Michael Flynn … ‘with prejudice[]’ …. [E]vidence … undermines the credibility of James Comey’s FBI, special counsel Robert Mueller, and the entire ‘Russia collusion’ investigation. [R]etired Army general [Flynn] … initially pleaded guilty to making false statements … when two agents interviewed him at the White House shortly after he took over as […]
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… another urgent existential threat is quietly growing in the background: the steady termination of nuclear arms control treaties between the United States and the Russian Federation and the absence of new arms control negotiations. ..
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MOSCOW. May 7 (Interfax) – Russian President Vladimir Putin and United States President Donald Trump discussed efforts to counter the coronavirus pandemic and the situation on the global oil market in a telephone call on Thursday, the Kremlin press service said. “The heads of state exchanged greetings on the 75th anniversary of the victory over Nazism. They emphasized a historic […]
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Subject: [UTExpertsDiscGrp] Re: “Three Russian doctors fall from hospital windows” Date: Thu, 7 May 2020 From: Luis Alcalá <luismalcala@gmail.com> It is a waste of time to comment on these news. In England and the USA, medical personnel commit suicide and nobody says it is the fault of Trump or Boris, but in the news about Russian suicides or accidents they […]
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(Article text ©2020 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – May 5, 2020 – article text also appeared at rferl.org/a/new-york-times-wins-pulitzer-for-putin-coverage-that-moscow-calls-fabrications-/30593587.html) The New York Times has won a Pulitzer Prize in the international reporting category for what the judges called a series of “enthralling stories, reported at great risk,” about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government. The initial Pulitzer ceremony, […]
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… 75 years ago, U.S. and Soviet forces linked up on the Elbe River in Germany at the end of the European phase of World War II. The anniversary prompted current leaders of the U.S. and Russia to transcend … frosty relations … and issue a rare joint declaration ….
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, April 25, 2020) The Moscow Carnegie Center has issued a podcast devoted to the discussion of generational change at the Russian Foreign Ministry and to what the rising generations, those in their 30s and 40s as well as those in their 20s are likely to bring to the table when they assume […]
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Subject: My answer to Sean Guillory (re Russian Studies) Date: Sat, 25 Apr 2020 08:53:34 +0300 From: Dmitry Babich <dima9770@mail.ru> [Dmitry Babich, born in Moscow, has worked for various Russian and international media outlets for more than 25 years. He is a frequent guest on BBC, Al Jazeera, RT, and CNN. His core areas of focus include Russia’s modern political […]
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(Russia Matters – russiamatters.org – Nikolas K. Gvosdev – April 22, 2020) Nikolas K. Gvosdev is the Captain Jerome E. Levy chair at the U.S. Naval War College and a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI). Vladimir Putin, during his two-decade tenure as either Russia’s president or prime minister, has now experienced several iterations of a peculiar […]
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U.S. President Donald Trump announced on April 20 that he intended to nominate career diplomat Julie Fisher, a top State Department official for Europe, to the embassy in Minsk.
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“As the coronavirus pandemic spreads, Russia appears to be observing the adage that you should never let a good crisis go to waste. Seeking to capitalize on the chaos and promote its own soft power, the Kremlin has taken Beijing’s lead and started love-bombing struggling nations with medical aid, and stepping up its efforts to broadcast propaganda and sow disinformation […]
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“Russia is testing whether the U.S. military has developed any weaknesses during the novel coronavirus crisis, a top general said, noting three run-ins with that country’s planes over a two-month period. ‘We just want to make it very clear to them … there are no vulnerabilities as a result of COVID-19,’ Air Force Gen. Terrence J. O’Shaughnessy, head of U.S. […]
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(Institute of Modern Russia – Yana Gorokhovslaia, Harriman Institute, Columbia University – April 22, 2020) Former Vice President Joseph Biden has recently emerged as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee who will face Donald Trump in November. Even though the outcome of the 2020 presidential election could not be more unclear, it is time to ask a question: what would a […]
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Oil prices in the U.S. went negative for the first time in history. Should Russia be worried? (Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Jake Cordell – April 21, 2020 – Jake covers business & economics for The Moscow Times.) What happened? The headline price for a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil fell into negative territory for the first time […]
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“A [heavily redacted] bipartisan Senate report … confirms the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusions that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election to sow chaos. Senators warned that it could happen again …. This is the fourth of five reports the Senate panel will release …. Previous reports reviewed Russian efforts to breach state election systems and manipulate social media, and […]
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“… There is no question that Russia – its leaders, expert analysts, and public – reacted negatively to NATO enlargement right from the start. … But …. Russia’s unhappiness is overdetermined, and there is no evidence that if NATO enlargement had been avoided, delayed, or altered (while nothing else changed), that Russia could have been reconciled to the idea of […]
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MOSCOW. April 20 (Interfax) – Nearly half of the U.S. companies operating in Russia will have to cut the number of their employees because of the restrictions imposed to slow the coronavirus infection epidemic, but major companies are not thinking of leaving this market, President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia (AmCham) Alexis Rodzianko said. “We have regularly […]
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Subject: Response to Dmitry Babich from JRL #67, Item 27 Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2020 From: Guillory, Sean Christopher Jos <guillory@pitt.edu> I’ve wavered back and forth between sending a comment on Dmitry Babich’s Facebook post about the pervasiveness of “Ultra-liberal ideology” in American Russian Studies included in JRL 2020-#67, Item 27. Part of me just wants to ignore such a […]
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A decade of health disinformation promoted by President Vladimir Putin of Russia has sown wide confusion, hurt major institutions and encouraged the spread of deadly illnesses. “… the pandemic has swept the globe … accompanied by a dangerous surge of false information – an ‘infodemic,’ according to the [WHO] …. Analysts say … Putin … has played a principal role […]
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“… .planned supply cuts represent a complete reversal by Russia and Saudi Arabia, which had both threatened to ramp up output in a battle for market share after the previous deal between … OPEC[] and other producers fell apart …. Combined with G20 input, the leaders of Russia, the United States and Saudi Arabia engaged in a series of phone […]
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“… The AG is logically being briefed on the progress and findings of U.S. Attorney John Durham’s investigation, which he commissioned to examine how the empty Russia collusion case got started in the first place and if it involved any wrongdoing on the part of the government. It is a safe bet that … Durham is collecting evidence beyond the […]
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“After a Russian military contingent with medical equipment arrived in Rome last month, the Kremlin’s English-language media outlets RT and Sputnik found video gold. They highlighted an Italian man replacing an E.U. flag with a Russian one — deriding how Italy’s European partners “failed” to provide assistance to the coronavirus-stricken country while Russia ‘filled in.’ But when questions were raised […]
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All three leaders face economic threat from low prices. Moscow and Riyadh bury the hatchet. “… On Thursday, Saudi Arabia and Russia ended their stalemate and convinced a handful of other major oil producers to join them in the biggest monthly oil-production cut ever. … Mexico … [also] said it would reduce … production by 100,000 barrels a day …. […]
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“Spying may be the world’s second-oldest profession, but … Putin has certainly given it a fresh makeover. To fully grasp what Russia did in the 2016 U.S. presidential election – and hopes to replicate … – … look back to the end of the Cold War. Putin was a young Soviet KGB officer in Dresden, East Germany … as the […]
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“Attorney General William Barr believes the Russia investigation that shadowed President Donald Trump for the first two years of his administration was started without any basis and amounted to an effort to ‘sabotage the presidency’ …. Barr, who has appointed a U.S. Attorney to scrutinize the origins of the Russia probe, said the Justice Department has evidence there was ‘something […]
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NOVO-OGARYOVO, Moscow region. April 10 (Interfax) – Russia and the United States are cooperating both on space projects and on topical global affairs, such as the market situation and the fight against coronavirus, and such contacts will continue with U.S. President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin said. “We are glad that our specialists are successfully working together with their […]
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“The 22-year old space station, which conducts research and scientific studies into space 400km above the Earth, is one of the most prominent examples of U.S.-Russian co-operation, under … joint management of Russia’s space agency and … NASA …. Russia’s Roscosmos is determined to stick to its rocket launch and return schedule to keep the ISS functioning and fully equipped […]
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“… New START … signed 10 years ago, verifiably caps each nation’s strategic nuclear arsenals at no more than 1,550 deployed warheads and 700 missile and bomber delivery platforms. The treaty has worked well for both sides. The latest data exchange mandated by the treaty shows Russia with 1,326 deployed warheads on 485 deployed delivery systems, while the United States […]
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“A U.S.-Russian space crew blasted off Thursday to the International Space Station following a tight quarantine amid the coronavirus pandemic. NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Roscosmos’ Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner lifted off as scheduled … from the Russian-operated Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan …. The International Space Station is currently operated by Russian Oleg Skripochka and NASA astronauts Jessica Meir […]
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WASHINGTON. April 7 (Interfax) – There are not enough applications from Russian citizens even for one flight from the United States amid the coronavirus epidemic, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said. “It is important that every compatriot who wishes to leave the United States for Russia gets registered in the relevant section of the Internet portal Gosuslugi. […]
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(Oilprice.com – Julianne Geiger – March 30, 2020) U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed on Monday to have energy officials from both countries discuss the dire state of the global oil market, the Kremlin said, according to Reuters. Trump and Putin discussed the matter over the phone on Monday. “Opinions on the current state of the […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, March 20, 2020) When the USSR disintegrated, Western countries tried to establish conventional relations with the countries of Central Asia, setting up military bases and expanding security arrangements in order to strengthen the independence of these regimes both internally and from Moscow, Dmitry Vinnik says. But that policy has failed, according to […]
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(Article text ©2020 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – March 26, 2020 – article text also appeared at rferl.org/a/30511615.html) Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed at a Group of 20 (G20) video conference that a freeze be placed on economic sanctions to allow countries to better combat the coronavirus pandemic that has infected more than 500,000 worldwide […]
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(Russia Matters – russiamatters.org – Simon Saradzhyan – March 20, 2020) Simon Saradzhyan is the founding director of Russia Matters. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author. A popular talking point for many watchers of U.S.-Russian relations is to warn that reduced communication between the two countries, caused by the enduring animosities between Moscow and […]
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(Russia Matters – russiamatters.org – Steven Pifer – March 5, 2020) This op-ed is part of a new debate from Russia Matters and is written in response to “US Embrace of Great Power Competition Also Means Contending With Spheres of Influence” by Paul Saunders. In a recent article for Russia Matters, Paul Saunders argues that, since the United States now views great power […]
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(Russia Matters – russiamatters.org – Paul Saunders – March 12, 2020) Paul Saunders is a senior fellow in U.S. foreign policy at the Center for the National Interest. This op-ed is part of a new debate from Russia Matters. It is a rebuttal to “Contending With — Not Accepting — Spheres of Influence” by Steven Pifer. The opening argument can be read here: “US Embrace […]
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Conditions are ripe: The pandemic is sweeping right into campaign season, and Trump’s response is highly contested. “Close observers of Russian disinformation tactics in electoral interference have two big questions as the 2020 election approaches: How large is the appetite for escalation among Russian intelligence agencies this time around? And where was, and is, S.V.R., Russia’s counterpart to the C.I.A.? […]
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“Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election has been well documented, and evidence shows Russia is again trying to undermine the 2020 election. But what is the federal government doing to stop it? Richard Hasen, founder of the Election Law Blog and author of “Election Meltdown: Dirty Tricks, Distrust, and the Threat to American Democracy,” joins Hari Sreenivasan to […]
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Subject: COVID-19 Travel Restrictions Update Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2020 From: Josh Wilson <jwilson@sras.org> COVID-19 Travel Restrictions Update SRAS.org SRAS Updates on COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Update as of March 10, 2020 Russia, including the city Moscow where elevated precautions are being taken, has not yet applied any restrictions to US citizens traveling to Russia. US citizens arriving to Moscow or any […]
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Russian intelligence services are trying to incite violence by white supremacist groups to sow chaos in the United States, American intelligence officials said “The Russian government has stepped up efforts to inflame racial tensions in the United States as part of its bid to influence November’s presidential election, including trying to incite violence by white supremacist groups and to stoke […]
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(Article text ©2020 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – March 10, 2020 – article text also appeared at rferl.org/a/us-official-new-start-treaty-should-cover-russian-weapons-systems-under-development/30479166.html) An extension of the last remaining nuclear arms treaty between the United States and Russia should include new weapons systems that Moscow is developing, a U.S. State Department official said in a briefing on March 9. The New […]
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President Trump’s former top adviser on Russia talks with Lesley Stahl about the differences between briefings in the Trump and Obama administrations, how Vladimir Putin operates and how both Republicans and Democrats have played into his hands “You may remember Fiona Hill from her passionate testimony, and English accent, during the impeachment hearings …. She held one of the most […]
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“… Moscow’s hybrid war against the Western world continues unabated. … There are many advantages to a modern-day revival of the Lend-Lease concept. Firstly, it materially strengthens Ukraine by demonstrating growing U.S. support …. Secondly, this plan would help increase allied security and capabilities in threatened areas such as Romania in the Black Sea region and Poland in the north. […]
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“… A blend of new threats and opportunities is causing Moscow to take greater risks and embrace more flamboyant policies in Europe. The Kremlin’s relationships with Italy and Austria shine a spotlight on how Europe’s domestic troubles have opened many doors for Moscow. … Europe … has always been too important for the Kremlin to ignore. … the historical benchmark […]
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“Russia’s new prime minister has ordered his government to revive Russia’s ties with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in what looks like a longshot bid to reopen links with western institutions severed after the Ukraine crisis began in 2014. Mikhail Mishustin [reportedly] asked subordinates to draft a plan … possibly even restarting Russia’s efforts to join …. The […]
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KYIV. Feb 27 (Interfax) – Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation has registered a criminal case opened into possible pressure put on Ukraine’s former prosecutor general Viktor Shokin by former U.S. vice president Joe Biden. “The State Bureau of Investigation has added information about a criminal offence committed to the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations,” Shokin’s lawyer Oleksandr Teleshetsky said at […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – February 27, 2020) The United States and Britain have more than doubled their crude oil purchases from Russia due to Iran and Venezuela sanctions, the RBC news website reported Friday, citing customs data. Russia exported more than 267 million metric tons of crude oil worth $121 billion in 2019, RBC cited Federal Customs Service data […]
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“The U.S. intelligence community’s top election security official …, Shelby Pierson, told lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee that Russia is interfering in the 2020 election with the goal of helping … Trump get reelected. [But while t]he US intelligence community has assessed that Russia is interfering in the 2020 election and has separately assessed that Russia views Trump as […]
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