Archives: May 2016

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former NATO Secretary General, has been hired as an adviser to Ukraine.

President Vladimir Putin is pursuing rearmament and confrontation with the West even during his current charm offensive.

Opposition member Dmitry Nekrasov has fled Russia, fearing that that the Federal Security Service (FSB) will prosecute him on vague charges of “terrorism.”

The Daily Vertical is a video primer for Russia-watchers that appears Monday through Friday. Viewers can suggest topics via Twitter @PowerVertical or on the Power Vertical Facebook page. A transcript of today’s Daily Vertical can be found here.

ON MY MIND For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Just days after releasing Nadia Savchenko, a Russian court in Grozny sentenced two Ukrainians, Stanislav Klykh and Mykola Karpyuk, to decades in prison on dubious charges that they killed Russian soldiers while fighting with Chechen rebels in the 1990s. After being seized, […]

Meanwhile Russian-backed separatists in Donetsk claim Ukrainian troops fired on a group that included OSCE monitors and journalists today.

Police detained Ruslan Shamsuarov, son of Azat Shamsuarov, senior VP of Lukoil, and his friends for speeding through Moscow in a Mercedes Gelandewagen

ON MY MIND As I noted in today’s Daily Vertical, and as several commentators noted in pieces highlighted below, the contrasting images of Nadia Savchenko’s triumphant return to Ukraine and the deafening silence surrounding the repatriation of GRU officers Yevgeny Yerofeyev and Aleksander Aleksandrov couldn’t be sharper. In fact, they are something of a metaphor […]

The Kremlin is making conciliatory noises to capitalise on yesterday’s release of Nadiya Savchenko in exchange for two captured Russian servicemen.

Russian officials are dramatically underestimating the threat of Islamist groups now pose to the country, according to Galina Khizriyeva.