Staunton, January 21 – After declaring in December that they felt diminished by the fact that Belarusian believers felt insulted by the fact that the Orthodox Church in their country did not have self-administering status, the leadership of the Belarusian exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church has shelved the issue for the next 25 to […]
Staunton, January 21 – For many, the face of poverty in Russia is to be found in the country’s dying countryside, but a new survey finds that more than half of the population of its largest cities is now poor, and predicts that ever more urban Russians are becoming poor, a development with potentially ominous […]
Staunton, January 21 – Since Moscow’s Anschluss of Crimea almost a year ago, many in Russia, Ukraine and the West have asked not only why Vladimir Putin has chosen the path of aggression, but also why he has chosen it now rather than at some other time and what his timing says about his broader […]
Staunton, January 19 – The looming decline in the number of Russian births, the increase in emigration, and the rise in the number of births among non-Russians and especially Muslim groups will spark “inter-ethnic conflicts” in the Russian Federation that will have “a more destructive effect” than those in Europe, according to Nataliya Shishkina. An […]
Staunton, January 20 – Vladimir Putin “understands that the threat to his regime is to be found among the thinking and educated” and thus has been taking steps to “destroy higher education” in Russia and cut the financing of science, according to Moscow commentator Alfred Koch. Such actions may buy Putin some short term protection, […]
Staunton, January 20 – Even as observers try to keep track of the shifting lines of the front in Donetsk and at the airport there, a more frightening form of conflict is spreading across Ukraine – a partisan-style war in other parts of that country that will give Moscow additional leverage on Kyiv while complicating […]
Staunton, January 19 — Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov’s aspirations to be the leader of Russia’s Muslims threatens the stability and unity of the Russian Federation by exacerbating conflicts between Moscow and the predominantly Muslim non-Russian republics and by intensifying concerns among Russians about what Kadyrov’s efforts mean for Russia. That conclusion is suggested but not […]
Staunton, January 19 – Over the past year, Ukrainians have torn down more than 500 memorials to Vladimir Lenin, actions that reflect their revulsion at the Soviet past but ones that have had the unintended consequence of transforming Lenin into a conservative figure for many Russians and making the destruction of Lenin statues in their […]
Staunton, January 19 – Twenty-five years ago today, on Mikhail Gorbachev’s order, Soviet troops invaded the Azerbaijani capital of Baku by land, sea and air, killing hundreds and enflaming ethnic hatreds, in an action the Soviet president five years after the events acknowledged was “the greatest mistake” of his political career. That event, known to […]
Staunton, January 19 – A Russian blogger has gathered pictures of homemade signs in Russian Orthodox churches, signs which carry injunctions that are nowhere to be found in the Bible, as he points out. (See TsarValera, also re-posted here. Among them are the following: “Brothers and Sisters! Don’t use Orthodox newspapers as toilet paper. That […]
