Staunton, May 5 – Despite his promotion of himself as “the ingatherer of the Russian lands” and “the defender of ethnic Russians” wherever they live, Vladimir Putin has failed to live up to his frequent promises to help the 100,000 ethnic Russians who fled Chechnya during the conflict and have not been able to return, […]
Yesterday’s liveblog can be found here. For an overview and analysis of this developing story see our latest podcast. Please help The Interpreter to continue providing this valuable information service by making a donation towards our costs. An interactive map of the situation: View Ukraine: April, 2014 in a larger map For links to individual […]
Pro-Russian separatists have once again taken control of the Trade Union building in Odessa, and there are clashes once again. Yesterday’s liveblog can be found here. For an overview and analysis of this developing story see our latest podcast. Please help The Interpreter to continue providing this valuable information service by making a donation towards […]
Staunton, May 4 – Because Vladimir Putin did not stop after the Crimean Anschluss, the Kremlin leader now faces a Hobson’s choice of his own making: if he expands his aggression in Ukraine, he will face a Ukrainian people in arms backed by the West, but if he does not introduce forces there, he will […]
Kharkiv, Ukraine — “The last few months have divided friends and families,” says Olga Filippova, a 47-year-old social scientist and long time Kharkiv resident, “I can’t even talk to my relative [who lives in Russia] about politics, because she would rather believe the news than me. We’ve agreed to only talk about family, but that […]
Staunton, May 4 – Had Vladimir Putin accepted the Maidan’s ouster of discredited Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych and agreed to accept the results of the upcoming elections, nothing that has occurred in Ukraine since that time would have happened, according to a Ukrainian commentator. “Thousands of people would not have suddenly discovered in themselves an […]
Kiev, Ukraine — On May 1, Ukraine’s acting president Turchynov admitted that it lost control of eastern Ukraine. The following day, on May 2, the government launched a military offensive to take back eastern cities from militants. In Slavyansk, two military helicopters were shot down, allegedly by the pro-Russian forces. In Odessa, the death toll […]
Staunton, May 3 – Despite the explosive growth in income inequality in Russia since 1991, the views of the Russian rich and Russian poor there are far less different and distinctive than many think, a survival from Soviet times suggesting that no “culture of poverty” has yet been formed there, according to a Moscow scholar. […]
Staunton, May 3 – Despite Moscow’s promises and expectations, its Customs Union is “clearly insufficient for stimulating cooperation in the Russian-Kazakhstan border regions,” according to a Russian expert. For that to change, he says the two sides would have to develop something like the EU’s Euro-Region program — something they are very from doing. The […]
Staunton, May 3 – Only those who are in complete denial can fail to see that Vladimir Putin is a fascist, émigré Russian historian Yuri Felshtinsky says, given that “this analogy is so evident” in the wake of the Crimean Anschluss and the Kremlin leader’s own words and promotion of openly fascist figures like Dmitry […]
