Staunton, November 7 – Just as Vladimir Putin used the apartment bombings in Russian cities in 1999 to restart the Chechen war and bring himself to power, so too, again needing a war to keep his position, the Kremlin leader will exploit the terrorist plane bombing to expand Russia’s presence abroad and isolate Ukraine, according […]
Staunton, November 5 – Only if he is facing the complete collapse of his regime, Garri Kasparov says, will Putin consider invading the Baltic countries because NATO has made it clear that it will defend them and Moscow is unprepared to go to war with the West. Instead, the Kremlin leader is more likely to […]
Staunton, November 6 – The flood of news stories from a country as large, diverse and often strange as the Russian Federation often appears to be is far too large for anyone to keep up with. But there needs to be a way to mark those which can’t be discussed in detail but which are […]
Staunton, November 5 – Moscow’s revised budget, one that provides for large increases in spending for the military and government structures along with reductions in investment in human capital, means that Russia could soon find itself “both without scholars and without missiles or a fleet,” according to a study by Moscow’s Higher School of Economics.” […]
Staunton, November 5 – Many commentators are speculating on whether Russia’s elite groups, now threatened by Vladimir Putin’s policies, will find a way to remove him from office and install someone more to their liking. Andrey Piontkovsky has focused particular attention on this issue. But this is only part of a larger issue, Dmitry Gudkov […]
Staunton, November 4 – There are “two Russian worlds” now, and no one should confuse them, Andrey Kolesnikov says. The Russian authorities have their “own Russian world or more precisely Russian myth,” while the Russians themselves have their very different one which is truly universal. In an essay entitled “The Russian Myth against the Russian […]
Staunton, November 4 – Today, Russians mark a holiday that lays stress on “religiosity over secularism, national uniqueness over universal values, and stability over development,” values few besides its creator, Vladimir Putin, would have seen as its core when he established this holiday eleven years ago, according to Vladislav Inozemtsev. At that time, the Moscow […]
Staunton, November 3 – Vladimir Putin has not only moved the Valdai Club from its original venue but has also transformed it from “an analogue to Western think tanks” with “a free dialogue” into an exemplar of what Samuel Huntington called “the clash of civilizations,” according to Vadim Shtepa. The Kremlin leader began this transformation […]
Staunton, November 3 – Andrey Illarionov says that recent statements by Vladimir Putin suggest that the Kremlin leader may be about to exploit the crash of the Russian plane in Sinai in much the same way that he did the apartment bombings in 1999, to unify Russian society behind even harsher measures against “terrorists.” The […]
Staunton, November 4 – The Russian Federation is not sustainable in its current form, Liliya Shevtsova says. “It is the last empire of its type in the 21st century, and it cannot respond to a single contemporary challenge.” Consequently, it “is on the road to the cemetery” but just when is impossible to say. In […]
