Staunton, March 16 — Many who look at Moscow’s propaganda efforts consider only their current state and fail to see the ways in which the Kremlin has cultivated certain ideas over a very long period, laying the groundwork for what it may only expect to be able to achieve in the long term. Such people […]
Staunton, March 16 – Over the past ten days, most analysts and many Russians have been looking for signs as to what is taking place behind the scenes given the departure from public view of Vladimir Putin. Every report that appears to bear on that subject has been subjected to intense scrutiny and discussion. But […]
Staunton, March 15 — If Vladimir Putin is ousted or when he dies, the Russian government likely to emerge at least in the near term would not be the liberal, democratic and peaceful one in which so many are placing their hopes. And in the short term, such a regime almost certainly would behave even […]
Staunton, March 14 — Rumors have always swirled around the Russian throne especially when anything happens or is thought to be happening or even is desired to happen. But the reach and intensity if not the accuracy and insight of such rumors has been vastly increased by the rise of social media and especially Twitter […]
Staunton, March 15 — Ninety-eight years ago today, Nicholas II abdicated the throne for himself and his son, ushering in the Provisional Government and great hopes for Russian democracy at home and abroad, hopes that were soon dashed by destructive orders of the new government itself and by the Bolshevik revolution less than nine months […]
Staunton, March 13 — Most discussions about divisions in Ukraine focus either on the differences of east and west or on those between Russian speakers and Ukrainian speakers, but a deeper and more important divide, one cutting across both of the others, Sergey Koshman writes, is between those who live in the cities and those […]
Staunton, March 13 — The Putin regime has lost two things on which any state depends: a monopoly on the legitimate use of force on its own territory and a balance among its own force structures. And those twin losses help to explain why that country’s force structures may be emerging as the most powerful […]
Staunton, March 13 — Thirty-three years ago, Soviet commentator Fyodor Burlatsky published an article entitled “Interregnum” in Novy Mir. Ostensibly about what had taken place in China during changes from one dynasty to another, it was in fact a description of what was occurring in the USSR of his times. As Burlatsky pointed out, people […]
Staunton, March 12 — Because of widespread poverty, brittle authoritarian regimes, and the impact of developments in neighboring Afghanistan, the Central Asian countries have long been a breeding ground for Islamist terrorists. But now there is a new component in this mix: the abandoned families of those who have gone to Russia to work. Students […]
Staunton, March 12 — Andrey Illarionov, an economist who earlier served as an advisor to Vladimir Putin, says that future historians may describe what is happening in Moscow now as “a conspiracy of the generals” — or more precisely as a behind-the-scenes battle between a former lieutenant colonel (Putin) and three senior generals. As the […]
