Staunton, April 6 – At a time when many commentators are seeking to explain what is going on in Ukraine by searching for analogies with other places and events, it is useful to be reminded of the limits of at least some of these comparisons as Bogdan Butkevich does in an article titled “10 Reasons […]
Staunton, April 6 — Of the slightly more 3,000 media outlets in Crimea before the Anschluss, the Russian occupation authorities have reregistered and therefore allowed to continue to operate only 232. Hardest hit have been those in Crimean Tatar, there, the Russian officials have closed 11 out of 12. Of the 232 with official permission […]
Staunton, April 6 — Between 2,500 and 5,000 residents of Novosibirsk staged a demonstration yesterday to demand that Moscow follow the principles of the Russian Constitution and allow artistic and other freedoms instead of pursuing what is an increasingly obscurantist, reactionary and authoritarian policy. The meeting sparked by the Tannhauser case called for that play […]
Staunton, April 6 — Lies are not only a moral failing but ultimately a political one as well because they typically are unmasked and the liar held responsible and because, however cleverly designed, they quite often provide an indication directly or indirectly of where the liar plans to move because even those who lie cannot […]
Staunton, April 5 — A new study by a group of Moscow activists on the state of freedom of assembly in Russia concludes that Vladimir Putin has been first limiting and then eliminating that right as well as others in his drive to prevent the citizens of his country from being able to express themselves […]
Staunton, April 5 — Thanks to the help of Finnish friends, Petrozavodsk, the capital of Karelia, got dial-up Internet service in 1997, even before Moscow did; and the links it has provided help explain the rise of the Karelian national movement since then, including the protests this week against the Moscow-imposed governor. The Internet not […]
Staunton, April 3 — The conflict between the FSB and Ramzan Kadyrov over who is to be held responsible for the murder of Boris Nemtsov is intensifying and increasingly affects Vladimir Putin, Andrey Piontkovsky says, because “any attack on Kadyrov indirectly or directly is an attack” on the Kremlin leader. At a minimum, it calls […]
Staunton, April 3 — Despite Alexander Lukashenko’s tilt away from Moscow and even his own use of his country’s national language on occasion, the situation of the Belarusian language is dire and is likely going to deteriorate further because of the failure of Minsk to live up to its own laws, according to the Frantsishak […]
Staunton, April 3 — Vladimir Putin has chosen a Duma deputy from Sverdlovsk with an FSB background and service in the notorious Alpha Group during his Chechen wars to be the head of the new Federal Agency for Nationality Affairs, an indication of how the Kremlin leader intends to use this new tool and why […]
Staunton, April 3 – More than 1,000 residents of Petrazovodsk took part in a demonstration there yesterday which called for the ouster of the Karelia’s current head Aleksandr Khudilaynen, “the first region in Russia” in Putin’s times where the local population has demanded such a step, according to Karelian republic television. (The television station’s assertion […]
