Staunton, June 2 – The West has been far more united and tougher about Russia’s intervention in Ukraine than anyone would have expected only a year ago, but “one must understand that the West having adopted a tactic about this conflict all the same has not yet elaborated a strategy,” according to Liliya Shevtsova. As […]
Staunton, June 1 – Many Ukrainians and their supporters abroad talk about the possibility of the peaceful return of Crimea to Ukrainian control at some point in the future, but such talk, while possibly understandable ignores the fact that Moscow is changing Crimea so dramatically that there will soon be no Crimea to return, according […]
Staunton, June 1 – As he does each week, Dmitry Bukovsky of Kyiv’s Delovaya Stolitsa surveys Russian propaganda concerning Ukraine and picks out what he identifies as “the top five propagandistic myths, fakes, and stupidities of the Kremlin” for the last seven days. The past week’s list, which highlights some of the rich variety of […]
Staunton, June 1 – Vladimir Putin is launching a new regional policy, one so deeply centralist that “the regions will in fact lose their title of subjects of the Federation and be converted into only objects of administration from the center,” according to Vadim Shtepa, one of Russia’s leading regionalist writers. In today’s Gazeta, Shtepa […]
Staunton, May 27 – The leaders of the Caucasus Emirate have declared themselves part of ISIS, but such declarations, given that many Salafis in the North Caucasus view ISIS as not being an Islamic project — an attitude Russian officials need to promote and exploit — may have the effect of weakening the group there, […]
Staunton, May 27 – Russian governors, “even the most loyal” to the Kremlin, as a result of the intensification of the economic crisis, find themselves between a rock and a hard place and are beginning to complain about Moscow’s failure to articulate an anti-crisis strategy which takes the interests of their regions into account, according […]
Staunton, May 27 – “All successful authoritarian regimes,” that is those who are able to ensure political stability, growth and economic and social modernization, “are rational and pragmatic,” whereas the far more numerous instances of unsuccessful authoritarian regimes tend to have leaders who act in irrational and un-pragmatic ways, according to Vladimir Ryzhkov. In the […]
Staunton, May 26 – As it has done so often, the Russian government is increasing repression outside the capital and thus outside the field of view of Western journalists and diplomats at a rapid pace, something it may be able to do even more effectively if Moscow media outlets follow the advice of some not […]
Staunton, May 26 – Vladimir Putin’s party of power, United Russia, failed to win a single seat in elections to the 15-member city council of Baltiysk in Kaliningrad, an indication of just how soft support for his party and possibly for him is — and of what steps Russian opposition groups may be able to […]
Staunton, May 26 – Many believe that the situation in Russian-occupied Crimea is “not so terrible” because there is no war going on there, Abmezhit Suleymanov says. But in many ways, the situation in Crimea is even worse: in the Donbass, “you know who your enemy is;” in Crimea, there are enemies “all around you” […]
