Staunton, April 22 – In what is becoming a defining feature of the Putin regime, the Russian authorities are saying things that many people want to hear at exactly the same moment that they are doing things that directly contradict what they say. Today, the victims of that are the Crimean Tatars, a Moscow commentator […]
Staunton, April 22 – Vladimir Pastukhov suggests that Ukraine now faces the choice of concluding a humiliating “Brest peace” with Moscow, in which it would yield an enormous portion of its territory and population to preserve itself in the hopes of recovering its losses in the future, or risk the possibility that it disappears altogether. […]
Staunton, April 21 – There is perhaps no better way to call attention to the way in which Vladimir Putin insists on one standard for his own country and a very different one for Ukraine and others than to imagine the position the Kremlin leader might have found himself in had he been asked what […]
Staunton, April 21 – The Geneva accords represent “a complete victory” for Vladimir Putin and “the complete capitulation of Europe and Ukraine,” which when translated out of diplomatic language gives the Kremlin leader “a mandate” to seize as much of Ukraine as he wants, according to Yuliya Latynina. On her Saturday evening program on Ekho […]
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is in Kiev today and is scheduled to meet with the leaders of the interim government. Meanwhile, separatists have captured more buildings, and Russian and the West continue to escalate the rhetoric, each blaming the other for an increasingly tense standoff. Yesterday’s liveblog can be found here. For an overview […]
Staunton, April 20 – Vladislav Surkov, who has served as a behind-the-scenes ideologist and operator for the Kremlin, has been involved in the funding of a Russian website that has done everything it can to boost Vladimir Putin and that now is producing lists of “national traitors,” according to Valery Shiryayev of Novaya Gazeta. That […]
Staunton, April 20 – Russian actions in eastern Ukraine are intensifying anti-Russian feelings among Ukrainians living there, deepening a divide between the Ukrainian and Russian communities there even as some in Moscow question whether the Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine should be considered ethnic Russians at all. That Moscow’s moves in Ukraine are infuriating Ukrainians […]
Staunton, April 20 – The US Department of State has declared that Washington will never recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea, but such declarations, important as they are, need to be given real content to ensure that no part of the government, intentionally or otherwise, takes steps that undermine that policy. In short, what is needed […]
Staunton, April 19 – Throughout history, Russians have been often been enthusiastic about government programs proclaiming “the in-gathering of Russian lands,” only to discover that such efforts inevitably involve increasing repression against themselves and are in fact “a holy war” by the government against them in the name of strengthening itself, Oleg Noskov says. In […]
Staunton, April 19 – Aleksandr Dugin, the Eurasianist leader who enjoys enormous influence in the Kremlin, says that countries adjoining the Russian Federation “can preserve their territorial integrity only by maintaining good relations with Russia” and that those who cross Moscow can have no such expectations. In an interview published in Yerkramas, a newspaper directed […]
