On the first anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s decision to introduce Russian forces into the Syrian civil war on the side of Baghdad dictator Bashar al-Assad, commentators in Russia and Ukraine are pointing to ways in which this conflict recalls Moscow’s earlier interventions in Chechnya and before that in Afghanistan.
This week, there have been widespread reports that the Russian elite is preparing itself for Putin’s departure; and others are talking openly about the likelihood of a new Russian revolution by the time of the anniversary of the Bolshevik one in 1917.
Nearly a third of the Russian population is under 25, and many support President Vladimir Putin.
A Pussy Riot-style scandal has broken out in Tatarstan after a young woman danced in front of a mosque there in what many thought were excessively revealing clothes.
A Russian blogger says President Vladimir Putin has plans for a “global” transformation of the Russian political landscape that will leave Russia without a president but have Putin become head of a State Council.
Five More Bellwether Duma Election Stories 2016-09-21 16:40:57 Staunton, VA, September 21, 2016 – Since the polls closed on Sunday, the Russian media have been filled with commentaries focusing on United Russia’s victory, the loss of the opposition, irregularities in the voting and the failure of a 2011-type response to emerge, and the possibility that Vladimir […]
Kommersant reports on Putin’s possible plans to merge existing separate intelligence agencies responsible for domestic and foreign espionage as well as protection of the top leaders of Russia into one Ministry of State Security, something akin to the KGB of the Soviet era.
At a minimum, 9640 people have been killed and 22,431 wounded as a result of military actions in eastern Ukraine, according to the United Nations monitoring mission’s latest quarterly report
NATO Won’t Do More than Express Concern If Putin Attacks Another Former Soviet Republic, Illarionov Says 2016-09-17 17:21:55 Staunton, VA, September 15, 2016 – If Vladimir Putin sends his forces to seize any of the former Soviet republics — including the three Baltic states which are NATO members — the Western alliance won’t do anything more […]
Now that some Russians have put up statues in honor of past Russian dictators like Ivan the Terrible, something they had not done for 400 years, and Joseph Stalin, which they hadn’t done since Khrushchev’s expose, others are calling for naming a square in a closed city to honor one of the latter’s most horrific henchmen, Lavrenty Beria.
