Staunton, March 15 — Ninety-eight years ago today, Nicholas II abdicated the throne for himself and his son, ushering in the Provisional Government and great hopes for Russian democracy at home and abroad, hopes that were soon dashed by destructive orders of the new government itself and by the Bolshevik revolution less than nine months […]
Staunton, March 13 — The Putin regime has lost two things on which any state depends: a monopoly on the legitimate use of force on its own territory and a balance among its own force structures. And those twin losses help to explain why that country’s force structures may be emerging as the most powerful […]
Among Boris Nemtsov’s many charges against Vladimir Putin was the often voiced complaint that Putin was selling off valuable Russian assets to China at bargain basement prices. Recent events only confirm Nemtsov’s apprehensions which were not unique to him but are often voiced across the spectrum of Russian political literature. The increasingly visible selling off […]
Staunton, March 13 — Thirty-three years ago, Soviet commentator Fyodor Burlatsky published an article entitled “Interregnum” in Novy Mir. Ostensibly about what had taken place in China during changes from one dynasty to another, it was in fact a description of what was occurring in the USSR of his times. As Burlatsky pointed out, people […]
Staunton, March 11 -Even though Vladimir Putin is extremely successful in managing the news about the big issues in Russian life, such as what he calls “the investigation” rather than the cover-up of the murder of Boris Nemtsov, he cannot control the flow of news items which directly or indirectly show the way in which […]
Staunton, March 11 — Ramzan Kadyrov has said he is prepared to give his life for Vladimir Putin, but the larger and more immediate question now, Oleg Kashin argues, is ‘where is the guarantee that Kadyrov’s men will not kill” the Russian president or others in his entourage so that the ambitious Chechen leader can […]
Staunton, February 1 — It is unclear which should disturb the Kremlin more — that Muslims in the Russian Federation are now sufficiently angry that they are thinking about taking part in public protests or that these same Muslims feel that they should ask not what Russian law says about such meetings but rather what […]
Staunton, March 1 — The ongoing “zombification” of Russian society and especially of young people and intellectuals is “a guarantee of the continued rule” of the Putin regime, but it is destroying the prospects for the development of Russia now and in the future, according to Dmitry Strovsky, an outspoken professor of journalism at the […]
Staunton, February 28 — For most of the last generation, people in Eurasia and around the world have been on a death watch for the Aral Sea. That vigil is now over: the Aral Sea has died. But a serious new if quite different crisis has now broken out regarding Lake Baikal, relations between a […]
Staunton, March 8 – Despite his efforts, Vladimir Putin is not a remake of Stalin and thus could be overthrown in a coup because he has not only violated the social contract he had with the Russian people but has with the murder of Boris Nemtsov shown that he is prepared to kill members of […]
