Staunton, June 30 – Western sanctions and Ukraine’s decision to end arms exports to Russia have already hurt some sectors of the economy and prompted some to call for making Russia completely independent of the international economy, but such moves, a Moscow commentator says, would only make Russia’s current problems even worse. Viktor Dyatlovich, a […]
Staunton, June 30 – The psychology of primitive groups, elaborated by Viktor Droganov and others, explains the behavior of Russians today, Andrey Movchan says, and without an understanding of that reality, he continues, “it is impossible to understand the serious processes which are taking place in the Russian Federation” of Vladimir Putin. “The most important […]
Staunton, June 30 – Three unwritten laws which governed the lives of Soviet people have resumed operation in Vladimir Putin’s Russia and increasingly set the terms for the interaction between his country’s population and the state, and they are “just as universal and all-embracing,” a Russian blogger suggests,” as the laws of Newton. These three […]
Staunton, June 29 – Like most Westerners, Russians have always made a distinction between the three Baltic countries and the former Soviet republics, but now a Russian analyst says that by turning to Europe, Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova are following the Baltic path, an indication of Moscow’s diminishing influence and thus of its likely policies […]
Staunton, June 29 – Russian attitudes toward Ukraine are appear to be shifting in response both to changes in the Kremlin’s approach and to changes in the coverage Moscow television has given to them. Only a few weeks ago, both were beating the drums for war; now, they are talking about finding a way to […]
Staunton, June 28 – No more than one in 20 of the graves of Russian soldiers who died in World War I remains undisturbed to this day, the result of a Soviet policy intended to downplay Russia’s role in that conflict and shift losses from it to the deaths arising from the Russian civil war, […]
Staunton, June 28 – Sixty years ago this week, non-Russian prisoners rose up in Kengir against their Soviet GULAG jailors. They were crushed by Soviet tanks, with at least 600 losing their lives in the process. But this rising, despite its defeat, in fact showed the power of the powerless and forced Moscow to change […]
Staunton, June 28 – On June 27, Kyiv took another big step on the road to the West by signing an association agreement with the European Union, and Moscow not unexpectedly responded by saying it would do everything it can to punish Ukraine for making that civilizational choice and force it to reconsider. Part of […]
Staunton, June 27 – Moscow is forcibly re-imposing the Soviet-era mythology that the Buryats and other non-Russians joined Russia voluntarily and now live happily as part of the multi-national society of that country, according to a Buryat scholar who was fired and then forced to seek asylum in the US because his research challenges that […]
Staunton, June 27 – Russians must recognize that sanctions are “the new economic and political reality” in which they live and overcome three widespread and government-promoted misconceptions about such sanctions if the country is going to be able to cope with them as well as possible, according to a senior Russian scholar. In an article […]
