Staunton, July 4 – That Putin has intervened in Ukraine at least in part to overcome the political challenges he faced in 2011-2012 and that he has made Russian more authoritarian in the process is largely common ground. But a new book gives remarkable details about these links and these trends and suggests that Putin’s […]
Staunton, July 4 – Vladimir Putin has eliminated challengers to his regime by integrating some within it and repressing those beyond it, but despite that achievement, his “regime is engaged in its own liquidation” and those who do not like what he has been doing must search each other out online and be ready for […]
Staunton, July 3 – Many commentators have speculated about the possibility that the fighting in eastern Ukraine could spill back into the Russian Federation, but now, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, head of the North Caucasian republic of Ingushetia, has pointed to a way this could easily happen that Ukrainian sources have suggested but that has attracted little […]
Staunton, June 17 – No Russian is surprised to learn that Soviet-era archives are more accessible in Belarus, which the West routinely calls “the last dictatorship in Europe,” than they are in Russia, a reflection of underlying weaknesses in Russian society that mean it will not become part of Europe for at least a generation, […]
Staunton, July 3 – Yesterday, Izvestiya reported that Vladimir Putin has signed a law under the terms of which the government will engage in strategic planning in five-year intervals to promote “improving the standard of living of the population, the growth of the Russian economy and the guaranteeing of the security of the country”. This […]
Staunton, July 3 – Russia’s smaller nationalities may “wither away” as a result of the revolution in information technology and of the threat that fast food poses to their national cuisines unless special measures are taken soon, according to speakers at a UNESCO-sponsored conference in Yakutsk and others at a forum on tourism in Khakassia. […]
Staunton, July 3 – “Ukraine is not simply a country,” New Region news agency chief Aleksandr Shchetilin says, “it is precisely Rus, where all Slavic and all human values have not been forgotten” and thus a magnet for all Slavs who have been horrified by the direction that Russia has taken both as a society […]
Staunton, July 3 – Russian Orthodox “fundamentalists” have formed their own armed units and provided both military and ideological support for pro-Moscow secessionists in eastern Ukraine. By so doing, they have radicalized opinion among the latter by calling for a “crusade” not just in the east but against all of Ukraine. In the issue of […]
Staunton, July 2 – Russia’s many languages are constantly in kaleidoscopic motion, with some gaining, others losing, and still others transformed. During the past week alone, some Duma deputies tried to ban Russians’ use of foreign words, German enthusiasts sought to reverse the demise of their language in Russia, and Karelian scholars moved to overcome […]
Staunton, July 2 – Nikolay Tsukanov, the governor of Kaliningrad, says that people he suspects are Maidan activists are arriving in his region alongside genuine refugees from Ukraine and that they are being sent by Western “special services” to “unleash a Maidan” in that Russian exclave and others as well. According to Nezavisimaya Gazeta today, […]
