Archives

Staunton, September 19 – Vladimir Putin is acting in Syria as he has in Ukraine on the basis of his conviction that no matter what Russia does, Barack Obama will not respond militarily and that as a result, Moscow has every incentive to raise the stakes in order to force negotiations and gain even more […]

‘A Lie isn’t an Alternative Point of View,’ Lithuanian Foreign Minister Reminds the West 2015-09-12 23:59:07 Staunton, September 12, 2015 One of the reasons for the success Vladimir Putin has had in his propaganda efforts is that he has exploited a dangerous trend in Western media – the proclivity of many journalists and their audiences […]

Staunton, September 10, 2015 Putin Opening ‘Second’ and Different ‘Front’ against the West in Syria, Felshtinsky Says 2015-09-11 20:22:51 Staunton, September 10, 2015 With the dispatch of Russian troops to Syria, Vladimir Putin has opened ‘a second front’ against the West, one that is very different in its methods and intentions than the first one […]

Staunton, September 11, 2015 Moscow Mulls Mobilizing Transdniestria and Gagauzia against Pro-Europe Activists in Chisinau 2015-09-11 20:36:08 Staunton, September 10, 2015 An article in the September 10th issue of Nezavisimaya gazeta highlighting opposition by Transdniestria and Gagauzia to the pro-EU protests in the Moldovan capital of Chisinau is another indication that some in Moscow are […]

Staunton, September 4 – Alyaksandr Lukashenka has so far refused Moscow’s demand for the establishment of a Russian military base in Belarus, two senior Belarusian analysts say, noting that in addition to promises of aid, Moscow is currently preparing to destabilize its Western neighbor and even create the conditions for a Russian military intervention. Arseniy […]

Staunton, September 2 – Many people, horrified by the actions of pro-Moscow forces in Crimea and the Donbas or unwilling to continue to resist Russian aggression, have concluded that the rest of Ukraine would be better off without those two regions and could move forward by sacrificing them to Vladimir Putin. “If only everything were […]

Staunton, September 1 – Russians who fought as volunteers in the Donbass militias are returning home not only with their weapons but with increasingly violent dispositions, and according to three experts, they now represent a threat not only to public order but also to political stability. Valery Borshchev, a former Duma deputy, tells Novyye Izvestiya […]

Staunton, August 31 Like the citizens of most countries, Russians are generally prepared to sacrifice to support national security, but they can become outraged if they learn that money taken from programs that helped them and supposedly given to the military is being diverted as a result of corruption. And that can have immediate political […]

Staunton, September 1 In 1997, David King produced his magisterial volume on how the Soviets airbrushed out of pictures disgraced former officials entitled The Commissar Vanishes. But now, many had assumed that in the age of the Internet, no regime would have equal success in destroying information about the past. Indeed, for all too many, […]

Staunton, September 1 As Russian schools reopen, only three of Russia’s non-Russian nations – the Tatars, the Khakass and the Yakut — have government-approved textbooks in their native languages, something that makes a mockery of Moscow’s claims that it is supporting instruction in various subjects in 24 languages and offering language courses in 73 of […]