Staunton, June 27 – Life expectancy is a demographic category that is most comparable across countries, and Russia now ranks 129th in the world in that regard, behind not just Europe but former Soviet republics and Soviet bloc countries, a pattern that reflects the fact that Russians have lost a sense of direction and are […]
Staunton, June 27 – The Russian military was ready to invade Ukraine in April but stopped short of doing so, Pavel Felgengauer, a leading independent military analyst in Moscow, says. Now it is not and probably won’t be until the middle of July at the earliest “regardless of what happens in Ukraine. Felgengauer’s comments came […]
Staunton, June 26 – By the middle of August, Boris Pastukhov says, “the Ukrainian conflict will have exhausted itself as a mobilization tool” for the Kremlin, one that gives “the appearance of national unity.” And consequently, “at that moment, new steps will be taken by the Kremlin directed at maintaining” the current level of “mobilization […]
Staunton, June 26 – The neologism “traditional Islam” was introduced by Ufa Mufti Talgat Tajuddin in the early 1990s to differentiate Muslim beliefs in the post-Soviet world from other trends being promoted by foreign missionaries. It has become widely used in all CIS countries, and it has even been invoked by Russian President Vladimir Putin. […]
Staunton, June 26 – Even as Vladimir Putin is being praised by some for having the Russian parliament rescind its authorization for the use of force in Ukraine, the Kremlin leader has admitted that he has done just that, left himself a variety of loopholes to do more, and promised to continue to “defend” ethnic […]
Staunton, June 26 – Because of Vladimir Putin’s neglect of Russia’s machine tool sector and his failure to develop domestic producers of machinery needed for the operation of the oil and gas sector, Russia may soon lose much of its ability to export petroleum products and thus one of Moscow’s primary sources of income. As […]
Staunton, June 26 – Only 5,000 of the 300,000 Crimean Tatars living in the Russian-occupied peninsula have applied for Russian passports over the last ten days, according to the Russian official there responsible for nationality affairs. That figure reflects the steadfast opposition of the Crimean Tatars to the Russian Anschluss. These officials say that applications […]
Staunton, June 25 United Russia, the party of power, is supporting the candidacies of some opposition figures in municipal and other local races but only where the latter have “practically no chances for victory,” an arrangement that Moscow analysts say is not filtering out “extremism” as is sometimes claimed but rather any “political competition.” Given […]
Staunton, June 25 – Moscow has already imposed restrictions on Russian security service personnel from travelling abroad, but now interior officials in Kaliningrad are “overfulfilling the plan” and restricting the ability of police and procuracy officials in Kaliningrad from travelling to other parts of the Russian Federation unless they can accord to fly. According to […]
Staunton, June 25 – There is no question that the Moscow Patriarchate has alienated many Ukrainians because of its support for Kremlin policy, but a Kyiv analyst suggests that its decline in Ukraine and more generally also reflects the dependence its hierarchy has on state power, something it no longer can count on having in […]
