Staunton, October 6 – The editors of Moscow’s Nezavisimaya Gazeta warn in a lead article October 6 that “injustice toward [Muslim] believers could lead to violence” in Moscow and other Russian cities as well, a conclusion that new research on the state of inter-ethnic relations in Russia’s regions confirms. “Almost two million” people have viewed […]
Staunton, October 5 – Despite upbeat comments by a number of Russian media outlets yesterday and today that “ours” (having in mind Soglasiye), won the [Latvian parliamentary] elections,” Igor Pavlovsky says, “the facts are that [the members of that party] are not ‘ours’ and they did not win.” According to the Regnum news agency commentator, […]
Staunton, October 5 – The gold standard of Stalin-era claims that Russians had been responsible for everything positive in the world was that “Popov invented baseball.” But now under Vladimir Putin, some Russian writers, one hesitates to call them scholars, have surpassed that with claims about the role of Russia before it even existed in […]
Staunton, October 6 – Many public statements by Russian leaders today shock “not so much by their reactionary quality…but by their illiteracy,” the result, Vladimir Pastukhov says, of the unleashing by the Kremlin of “a mechanism of ‘the de-civilization’ of Russian society, which, if extraordinary measures are not taken in time could turn out to […]
Staunton, October 6 – As a result of government propaganda, nearly three out of four Russians believe that the West wants to weaken or dismember their country, Georgy Mirsky argues, and as a result, they will view any weakening or separatism that does occur regardless of its source as the result of Western policies and […]
Staunton, October 5 – The Russian occupation of Crimea has affected residents of the Ukrainian peninsula in large ways and small. Now, Novy Region-2 has published a list of 21 ways in which life has changed for all the residents of that region, establishing a useful checklist for all concerned. There are other, more high-profile […]
Staunton, October 5 – The Ecological Watch on the North Caucasus, which attracted the attention of the Russian authorities for its exposure of Moscow’s violation of environmental legislation in advance of the Sochi Olympics, has suffered yet another attack: Last week, police in Krasnodar arrested one of its members, Tatyana Borisova. Elena Malina, a rights […]
Staunton, October 5 – At a time when many are unwilling to label Russian actions in Ukraine an invasion lest they offend Moscow or be forced to assume any responsibility for stopping it, a Ukrainian diplomat has introduced some clarity in the situation by demanding that Russian officials end their duplicitous practice of referring to […]
Staunton, October 5 – One of the characteristics of Vladimir Putin’s behavior — just as has been the case with other dictators in the past — is that he has often signaled what he intends to do by blaming those he intends to attack for something they have not done and have no intention of […]
Staunton, October 5 – Vladimir Putin feigns madness to intimidate the West, but he is a more rational actor than Hitler and will, if the West stands up to him, stand revealed as ”a cowardly Leningrad hooligan” who seeks to get his way by making threats, according to Tomas Venclova, a leading Lithuanian dissident in […]
