Staunton, May 21 – It is now common ground that Vladimir Putin’s Anschluss of Crimea and subversion of southeastern Ukraine have done more to boost and solidify the national identity of Ukrainians and their commitment to taking the steps necessary to be part of the West than have the actions of anyone else. But it […]
Staunton, May 21 – As Harvard historian Richard Pipes documented a half century ago, Stalin’s first great act of ethno-political engineering was the division of the Tatars and Bashkirs of the Middle Volga as part of a broader effort to weaken Kazan’s influence and that of the Muslim national communists led by Sultan-Galiyev. Now, that […]
Staunton, May 20 – Hajimurat haji Gatsalov, the mufti of North Osetia, says Russia and Osetia must “not miss the historic chance” created by Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and more quickly to unite the two Osetias into a single federal subject of the Russian Federation as because “the national and cultural social-unity of the people […]
Staunton, May 20 – In what represents yet another threat to the constitutional rights of Russian citizens, the Russian government is preparing a draft law that would allow officials to administratively supervise anyone who has been convicted and sentenced to the penal system for extremism and terrorism after his or her release, Izvestiya reports today. […]
Staunton, May 20 – No one should be surprised that “Vladimir Putin is finding a common language with that segment of European politicians who are playing on the sharpening of national feelings” both to strengthen their own domestic position and to promote myths about their nation’s pasts. But Yaroslav Shimov argues in Novaya Gazeta there […]
Staunton, May 20 – Vladimir Putin’s recent cadres shifts at the top of the force structures of the Russian Federation not only highlights an increase in their influence in Russian political life but also about “heightened competition among them,” according to Tatyana Stanovaya, the head of the analytic department of the Moscow Center for Political […]
Staunton, May 20 – With the active support of the Federal Migration Service, Moscow’s mosques are going to start free courses in the Russian language for immigrants from Central Asia and the Caucasus as part of a broader program to help them adapt and to raise their general educational level. Tatyana Dmitriyeva, the head of […]
Staunton, May 19 – Vladimir Putin’s plan to “organize administered chaos” in southeastern Ukraine is proving to be far harder than his promotion of separatism in “religiously and ethnically united enclaves like Abkhazia or South Osetia and consequently he appears likely to be deeply disappointed, according to Vladimir Pastukhov. That is to say, the St. […]
Staunton, May 19 – Putin’s Russia is “already almost a totalitarian state,” one in which “citizens are losing their individual rights” and “government propaganda is stupefying people,” according to a declaration of 52 leading human rights activists, opposition political leaders, and commentators, who collectively form the December Roundtable. Among those who signed it were Lyudmila […]
Staunton, May 19 – The selection of Aleksandr Boroday and Igor Girkin to leading positions in the self-proclaimed “Donetsk Peoples Republic” in Ukraine not only shows the absence of mass support for that entity and its goals but shows that the Kremlin is playing with something many had assumed did not exist – “Orthodox terrorism,” […]
