Staunton, February 20 – Moscow has been outraged whenever the people of its former imperial domains have taken down statues of Lenin erected in Soviet times, but now it is possible that those same statues may be taken down in the Russian Federation and in the only way the Kremlin would approve of: by state […]
Staunton, February 20 – Deacon Andrey Kurayev, a Russian Orthodox commentator who is often provocative but whose ideas equally often reflect thinking in the Moscow Patriarchate, says that Moscow should give autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church before the Universal Patriarchate does and thus limit Russia’s losses in Ukraine. In a post on his Livejournal.com […]
Staunton, February 18 — Vladimir Mamontov, head of the Moscow Speaks radio station, says that the creation of a Transdniestria-like entity in eastern Ukraine “should not be considered a victory” for Russia, a statement that has at least three possible meanings, none of which should be ignored. First of all, Mamontov’s words could be what […]
Staunton, February 19 – The situation in and around Russia is now changing with such dizzying rapidity that it is all but impossible to keep up, given the overriding need to focus on Vladimir Putin’s continuing aggression in Ukraine. But many, small and large, are worth watching because of the potential each of them has […]
Staunton, February 18 – The head of the FSB in Crimea says that “anti-Russian risings do not yet threaten” the peninsula but that Western intelligence services are creating the basis for them, a claim that the Russian security services are likely to invoke as justification for a sweeping new crackdown. And one commentator with whom […]
Staunton, February 18 – On August 22, 1939, Adolf Hitler explained to his entourage why he thought he could get away with mass murder by saying that “nobody talks about the Armenians nowadays,” despite the fact that they had been the victims of a mass murder only 24 years earlier. Hitler’s sweeping cynicism in this […]
Staunton, February 20 – In the classic film about Watergate, All the President’s Men, Deep Throat warns that in unmasking a conspiracy, it is important not to go too fast but rather to build from the outer rings into the center. Otherwise, the conspirators will feel protected, and the possibility that anything will be done […]
Staunton, February 18 – Many Russians have long been accustomed to thinking of immigrant workers as undesirable alines, but the departure of so many of them as a result of the economic crisis and new government restrictions on immigration is beginning to affect Russians where they live – and some of them may soon be […]
Staunton, February 18 – As Vladimir Putin’s rule has taken on ever more features of fascism, analysts have focused on those fascist and proto-fascist writers he has cited in his speeches. But there may be a more immediate model: Admiral Kolchak who has been called Russia’s “first fascist ruler” by both his supporters and his […]
Staunton, February 18 – Vladimir Mamontov, head of the Moscow Speaks radio station, says that the creation of a Transdnistria-like entity in eastern Ukraine “should not be considered a victory” for Russia, a statement that has at least three possible meanings, none of which should be ignored. First of all, Mamontov’s words could be what […]
