Staunton, May 27 – It would be “strange” if there weren’t any anti-Semites among groups fighting in Ukraine, Aleksandr Verkhovsky says, but he adds that “happily we have not observed any particular growth of anti-Semitism” there despite Moscow’s claims to the contrary. In the Russian Federation, on the other hand, the trend is different and […]
Staunton, May 26 – The “most significant result” of the Ukrainian presidential elections was not the selection of Petro Poroshenko, his victory in the first round, or the defeat of Yuliya Tymoshenko but rather “the formal-legal death of the Putin myth about the so-called ‘split’ of Ukraine into a West-Central and South-Eastern part,” Andrey Illarionov […]
Staunton, May 26 – Vladimir Putin “has lost the shortest cold war in history,” Yevgeny Ikhlov says. After having seized Crimea for Russia 12 weeks ago and effectively challenged the West to a contest, the Kremlin leader has backed away from his larger plan to counterpose a “Russian world” to everyone else. In a commentary […]
Staunton, May 26 – Russia faces a relatively limited choice about the direction it will follow, Vladimir Pastukhov argues. A liberal democratic scenario at this stage need not be considered. Instead, the country will choose among a national theocracy, a civil police state or “the imitation of statehood” altogether. In an essay on Polit.ru yesterday, […]
Staunton, May 26 – Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the special arrangements it has made for it mean underscores the fact that the federal subjects of the Russian Federation are far from equal, a reality that undercuts Vladimir Putin’s pledge to create a common legal space in his country and one sure to set off […]
The following is a translation of a harrowing account in Gazeta.ru from a French journalist and her cameramen who were taken captive in Slavyansk right at the time Italian journalist Andrea Rocchelli and his translator Andrei Mironov were killed in shelling by the roadside. While the account, edited by Elizaveta Antonova, is dated 26 May, […]
Staunton, May 25 – “There is no inter-national or inter-ethnic conflict in Ukraine” today, according to a Ukrainian specialist at the Russian Academy of Sciences. Instead, he argues, that country is “divided between those who have acquired a national self-consciousness and those who have not yet done so.” In an article prepared for an upcoming […]
Staunton, May 25 – Russia is dangerously ill, infected with Kremlin-promoted “intolerance, aggression, militarism and chauvinism,” a Kyiv commentator suggests, and there is a great danger because of Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine, that this “virus” will spread to that country and perhaps others as well. And if that infection sets in and Ukraine thus […]
Staunton, May 25 – The essential dishonesty of the Kremlin’s propaganda message is so blatant and so easy to unmask given the Internet and the ugliness of the ideas Moscow is pushing are “not appealing” to the West. But Vladimir Putin’s “ideological newspeak based on disinformation falls on fertile socio-cultural ground in the East,” a […]
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 […]
