Local residents say that several dozen residents of Chechnya, who took part in the fighting in Ukraine and died in the Donetsk region, have been brought back to their homeland in the last few days, giving numbers from 35 to 40-45 dead. The Republic’s security agencies declined to comment on these reports, writes a correspondent […]
Staunton, May 30 – Now that the Chechens have become involved as foot soldiers in Vladimir Putin’s campaign to destabilize and potentially occupy portions of Ukraine, it is worth comparing Moscow’s “counter-terrorist” campaign in the North Caucasus with what Kyiv is doing in its eastern region. Such a comparison is especially useful now because it […]
Staunton, May 30 -Putin’s repressive policies in Crimea and in Moscow have distracted attention from two other disturbing developments: the tendency of regional leaders to curry favor by going beyond what the center has required and attempts by some post-Soviet regimes to use Moscow’s actions as a guide or cover for crackdowns of their own. […]
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 […]
Staunton, May 28 – In what he describes as an act of “political bookkeeping,” Andrey Lipsky, the deputy chief editor of Novaya Gazeta describes what Russia has gained and what it has lost so far as a result of the Ukrainian crisis, thus providing a useful checklist of the balance now and its likely direction […]
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 […]
Staunton, May 28 – In what the Kremlin is likely to see as the most disturbing blowback of its backing of the Donetsk separatists in Ukraine, a group of veterans of the Georgian-Abkhaz war have stormed a government building in Sukhumi and demanded the resignation of that breakaway republic’s president, an indication of how easily […]
The evidence that sanctions change a state’s policies is slim. Actually it’s very slim. Economic sanctions taken by themselves have rarely produced the outcomes with which they were designed to produce. The main reason is that the global economy is so diverse, so spread out, that it is almost impossible to create an overarching and […]
There have been reports of gunfire in Donetsk this morning on the third day of a renewed government effort to push back separatist fighters from the region. Barricades are still up along roads to the airport (scene of intense fighting on Monday as the Ukrainian army and air force retook the site, inflicting heavy casualties […]
Staunton, May 27 – In yet another example of Vladimir Putin’s restoration of some of the ugliest features of the Soviet past, his government has “politicized any public criticism and marginalized any who disagree,” thus ensuring that opponents of the Kremlin have no possibility of winning elections and transforming them into Soviet-era-style dissidents. That is […]
