Staunton, April 3 – In the wake of Crimea, Moscow is likely to increase pressure on Belarus to cooperate, but experts say there is little chance that the two countries will unite any time soon. Instead, Putin’s Crimean Anschluss is likely to make Belarus and other former Soviet republics even more leery than they already […]
Staunton, April 3 – Many Russians and some in the West believe that the Russian military could overrun Ukraine because of its superiority over Ukrainian forces, but such views ignore both the enormous challenges that any occupier of Ukraine would face and the reality that the Ukrainian military is in fact a far more serious […]
Staunton, April 2 – Vladimir Putin is driven less by the “imperial syndrome” some are pointing to than by his own sense of the weakness as a result of his continuing reliance on the export of natural resources and his opposition to “the internal West” which wants Russia to modernize, according to Kirill Rogov. As […]
Staunton, April 2 – Neither Russian elites nor the Russian people accepted the demise of the USSR and occasionally signaled that throughout the Yeltsin period, according to commentator Sergey Shelin. But in every case, the West preferred not to take notice of that reality and only now with Vladimir Putin’s actions is being forced to […]
Staunton, April 2 – Vladimir Putin’s Anschluss of Crimea is echoing through the non-Russian nations within the Russian Federation, but it is also creating a new Ukrainian problem for the Kremlin leader in the Russian Far East where a former Japanese defense minister has noted that 60 percent of the inhabitants on the disputed Etorofu […]
Mustafa Dzhemilev, former Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People and a member of Ukraine’s parliament, has addressed the UN Security Council. Below we have translated excerpts from his speech – Ed. Dear ladies and gentlemen! The dramatic events in Ukraine – the grave clashes between the people and the ruling regime on […]
Ousted President Viktor Yanukovych has given a definat speech today, while Ukraine’s new Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk tries to find a path forward to rebuild the government. 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 […]
Staunton, April 1 – Aleksandr Dugin, a Eurasianist who is close to the Kremlin, has told ethnic Russians in Ukraine that they must not cooperate with Kyiv in any way, that they must be ready to “act radically,” even to the point of sparking a civil war in that country, and that Moscow will support […]
Staunton, April 1 – By his actions of omission and commission, US President Barack Obama is allowing his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to strengthen and even legitimize Moscow’s occupation of Crimea, a bow to this violation of international law with far-reaching consequences, according to Andrey Illarionov. Illarionov lays out his case in four articles. In […]
Obviously, the world will never be the same after the events in the Crimea. By its unprecedented actions, in terms of international norms, Russia is forcing the West to make a decision – to accept it into the club of developed nations as an equal member, or push it away for once and for all, […]
