Staunton, May 4 – Because Vladimir Putin did not stop after the Crimean Anschluss, the Kremlin leader now faces a Hobson’s choice of his own making: if he expands his aggression in Ukraine, he will face a Ukrainian people in arms backed by the West, but if he does not introduce forces there, he will […]
Staunton, May 4 – Had Vladimir Putin accepted the Maidan’s ouster of discredited Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych and agreed to accept the results of the upcoming elections, nothing that has occurred in Ukraine since that time would have happened, according to a Ukrainian commentator. “Thousands of people would not have suddenly discovered in themselves an […]
Staunton, May 3 – Despite the explosive growth in income inequality in Russia since 1991, the views of the Russian rich and Russian poor there are far less different and distinctive than many think, a survival from Soviet times suggesting that no “culture of poverty” has yet been formed there, according to a Moscow scholar. […]
Staunton, May 3 – Despite Moscow’s promises and expectations, its Customs Union is “clearly insufficient for stimulating cooperation in the Russian-Kazakhstan border regions,” according to a Russian expert. For that to change, he says the two sides would have to develop something like the EU’s Euro-Region program — something they are very from doing. The […]
Staunton, May 3 – Only those who are in complete denial can fail to see that Vladimir Putin is a fascist, émigré Russian historian Yuri Felshtinsky says, given that “this analogy is so evident” in the wake of the Crimean Anschluss and the Kremlin leader’s own words and promotion of openly fascist figures like Dmitry […]
Staunton, May 2 – Two months ago, Mariya Snegova, a Russian sociologist at Columbia University, suggested that Vladimir Putin was drawing on Mikhail Yuryev’s 2006 novel, The Third Empire, as a guide to his moves against Ukraine and as a source for a new imperial ideology. Snegova’s conclusions about the impact of Yuryev’s thinking on […]
Staunton, May 2 – Moscow is threatening its own country even more than it is threatening Ukraine by presenting those now in revolt against Kyiv as heroes, a portrayal that could lead to an upswing in extremist views and actions in the Russian Federation itself, according to Vladislav Inozemtsev. In an article in Vedomosti just […]
Staunton, May 2 – The persecution of Muslims in occupied Crimea and threats to Jews in those parts of eastern Ukraine where pro-Russia groups have seized power have received a great deal of attention in the West as evidence of what these Ukrainian areas face if Moscow is able to maintain its control there. But […]
Staunton, May 2 – The Crimean Tatars today are an inspiration and model for the non-Russians of the Russian Federation because they simultaneously defend the fundamental rights of their own nation and insist that they are part of the Ukrainian state, according to a Chuvash journal. “Looking at that energy with which the Crimean Tatars […]
Staunton, May 1 – Vladimir Putin is taking care of his basic electorate, pensioners and government employees, at the expense of the private sector, Yevgeny Gontmakher says. And because Moscow increasingly lacks the funds to do so, the Kremlin leader will take ever more money from business, a shift popular in the near term but […]
