Archives

Staunton, August 2 – If one considers the factors that powered the rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria – political instability, a weak counter-terrorism policy, Sunni predominance, and enormous natural resources — Dzhamiliya Kochoyan says, one is driven to the conclusion that Turkmenistan is at greater risk of an ISIS attack than any other […]

Staunton, August 4 – Moscow’s occupation and annexation of Crimea has attracted enormous attention and much criticism, but its efforts to get the international community to declare a much larger area of the Arctic Ocean Russian coastal waters and thus an exclusion zone have not. That may be about to change. Moscow has just filed […]

Staunton, August 3 – There are all kinds of statistical measures about incomes and expenditures that show the situation Russia’s poor now find themselves as a result of Vladimir Putin’s domestic and foreign policies. But perhaps the most striking indication of how bad things really are for those at the bottom of Russia’s increasingly unequal […]

Staunton, July 29 – The Second World Congress of the Crimean Tatar People which ended August 2 in Ankara shows why the Crimean Tatars as the most consistent opponents of the Russian Anschluss are a real asset for Ukraine and why their movement, which the Kremlin has tried so hard to disrupt, represents a large […]

Staunton, July 29 – The Russian government is totally opposed to the creation of an international tribunal to investigate the downing of the Malaysian airliner a year ago and will likely veto a proposal for such a venue at a meeting of the UN Security Council today. But a recent poll shows about half of […]

Staunton, August 3 –– Moscow has branded the only environmental action group in Ozersk “a foreign agent” as a step toward forcing the closure of the only such group working to defend the rights of those who continue to suffer as a result of two major nuclear accidents there in Soviet times. Nadezhda Kutepova, the […]

Staunton, July 29 –– Because they are latecomers to a market economy and have not adjusted to it, Russians, “however paradoxical it may seem,” feel themselves “more comfortable” now that the situation is worse than they did when the economy was growing and the gap between what they want and what they can have was […]

Staunton, July 31 –– Konstantin Borovoy, an outspoken Russian opposition politician and commentator, says Ukrainians are making a big mistake if they assume there is going to be any change in Russia soon either from above or below. And he insists that they must instead be prepared for more war and the need to fight […]

Staunton, July 30 – “The Russian special services have controlled” the flow of Islamist radicals from Russia to Syria “from the very beginning,” according to Elena Milashina of Novaya Gazeta. They haven’t interfered, and sometimes have assisted it, seeing “a threat to state security only in those who try to return from this war.” In […]

Staunton, July 26 – Ilya Frank, a Jewish linguist whose approach has defined how Russians study foreign languages for more than a decade, has decided he and his family must leave Moscow for Israel because of what he describes as “a Nazi-like atmosphere” there, one he quickly identified because of his familiarity with German writings […]