Staunton, February 28 – Government-controlled television is such a dominant player in Russian life that if the TV didn’t show Putin for two weeks and in the third said he is a criminal who had unleashed war, the Russian people would say “yes, we are against Putin,” according to Oleg Panfilov, a specialist in information […]
Staunton, February 28 – Almost three weeks ago, Boris Nemtsov said that he feared that Vladimir Putin would kill him for his opposition activities, and last night, the Kremlin leader did, either by direct order which some are convinced is the most likely or by creating the barbarous climate in Russia which has made such […]
Staunton, February 28 – The murder of Boris Nemtsov within sight of the Kremlin means that “instead of a Maidan,” against which Vladimir Putin has organized, “the Donbass has come” to Russia, a development that means “the little house of cards” that the Kremlin leader had been building has come crashing down, Kirill Martynov says. […]
Staunton, February 28 — Many people in Ukraine, Russia and elsewhere have wondered why two nations so closely linked by history and culture should have descended into such a vicious war, but they shouldn’t be surprised, Boris Grozovsky says, because peoples close to each other more likely to get involved in wars and to suffer […]
Staunton, February 27 – “Ukraine is where Georgia was six years ago, but Russia has been transformed into a second North Korea,” according to Sergi Kapanadze, a former Georgian diplomat and negotiator. As a result, what stopped Vladimir Putin in Georgia in 2008 won’t do so again in Ukraine, he says, but if Kyiv recognizes […]
Staunton, February 27 – Because Vladimir Putin seeks both recognition as the leader of a superpower and a new Yalta at which he and Western leaders will partition the world into spheres of influence and because he can only move toward that goal by new acts of aggression, the Kremlin leader is likely to attack […]
Staunton, February 27 – Having been slowed by Ukrainian resistance and hope to use the Minsk Accords to avoid new sanctions, Moscow is planning to spark uprisings in major Ukrainian cities in March and April before beginning a major military attack on the country in May, according to Yuri Lutsenko, head of the Poroshenko faction […]
Staunton, February 27 — Despite Vladimir Putin’s bombast and his apparent success in convincing many Russians and some Western leaders otherwise, the Kremlin leader is not a superman, according to Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and the Russian military is not the all powerful force he claims it is, according to Kseniya Kirillova. Speaking at Chatham House in […]
Staunton, February 24 – Valery Panyushkin today points to a development that, like the dog in the Sherlock Holmes story which didn’t bark, not everyone has noticed because it is about the absence of something rather than its presence – and that is the increasing lack of stories on Russian television about Russia. It has […]
Staunton, February 24 – The conflict in Ukraine is not one conflict but three: it is a conflict between the eastern and western portions of Ukraine, it is a conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and it is a conflict between Russia and the West, Vladimir Pastukhov says. And to resolve all three will require a […]
