Staunton, August 29 – Russia’s invasion of Ukraine highlights a reality many do not want to talk about: Vladimir Putin failed to be able to deal with Ukraine “via softer measures” because of the steadfastness and resistance of the Ukrainians. Putin was consequently forced to send in regular Russian army units, according to Andrei Zubov. […]
Staunton, August 28 – As a result of China’s crackdown in Xinjiang, Uyghurs are fleeing to Kazakhstan and even re-identifying as ethnic Kazakhs once they get there, according to an appeal by ethnic Kazakhs in China who complain that Astana has not proved equally welcoming to them. In an appeal to Kazakhstan Prime Minister Karim […]
Staunton, August 28 – The traditionally Buddhist Kalmyks and ethnic Russians living among them have already sent numerous volunteers to fight for pro-Moscow groups in Ukraine, but now they propose to create an international Dzhungarian Regiment within the National Cossack Guard. As Kalmyk political expert Sanal Kuvakov told Nezavisimaya Gazeta’s Andrey Serenko, the tsarist-era “80th […]
Staunton, August 28 – Now that the Russian military has invaded Ukraine and has engaged in combat with Ukrainian forces, it is time to assess the ability of each country to mobilize its forces for war. One Moscow commentator has done that and concluded that “the system of mobilization of the Russian army is just […]
Staunton, August 28 – The war Vladimir Putin has launched against Ukraine will not be limited to that country, a reality that “the banal Chamberlains” of the West today have failed to recognize and respond to and that the world will suffer from as a result unless and until a new Churchill emerges, according to […]
Staunton, August 28 – Vladimir Putin can continue to lie and deny that Russian forces have invaded Ukraine, but he can no longer conceal this from Russians, Ukrainians or the West. A reality that means there is no way out except admitting defeat or acknowledging that he has invaded, neither of which Putin will do, […]
Staunton, August 27 – After 20 years of assuming that Russia wanted to join the rest of the world and play by the rules (an assumption that was not without its own problems) many in the West now are governed by the opposite assumption: that Russia is capable of anything and therefore must be opposed, according […]
Staunton, August 27 – Seventy of the 125 members of the clergy of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate say that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church should separate from the Moscow Patriarchate and form on the territory of that country a single autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The survey, which was conducted on an anonymous […]
Staunton, August 27 – Vladimir Putin’s April 2013 call for the creation of a single school history textbook lest variations lead to “the violation of the humanitarian space of our multi-national nation” has sparked objections from Russian nationalists and the Russian Orthodox Church who say it downplays the Russianness of the state and from non-Russians […]
Staunton, August 27 – The Russian Spring portal has proudly declared that “the Luhansk machine-building factory is being evacuated to Russian Chuvashia,” an operation it said was taking place “as a result of extreme circumstances.” The factory supposedly was under fire from Ukrainian forces and much of it had been “destroyed.” It is likely that […]
