Tag: Chechen war

Putin and Kadyrov Have a Shared Interest in Avoiding a Break But May Not Be Able To

April 30, 2015

Staunton, April 30 – – Both Vladimir Putin and Ramzan Kadyrov have a deep interest in avoiding a complete break, the former because a new Chechen war would be “a moral catastrophe” that would undermine his myth and the latter because he would not survive without the enormous sums of money Moscow currently sends him, […]

Can the People Of Pskov Region Save Themselves By Themselves?

December 1, 2014

Staunton, November 30 – Ignored by Russian officials in Moscow and Pskov, some 2,000 people and businesses of Velikiye Luki in the Pskov region have organized a Union for the Rebirth of Pskov Region to provide assistance to those who need it most in one of the most economically depressed regions of European Russia. The […]

Russia This Week: Here Comes the Kremlin’s Troll Army (2-7 June)

June 6, 2014

Updated Daily. Building on years of Russian journalists’ reporting, Western media are now covering the Kremlin’s paid troll army, citing forums moderators’ experience, leaked documents, and local infiltrators, and uncovering how “web brigades” have been skewing public debate on Ukraine. Authorities are rounding up more suspects in the Bolotnaya Square demonstration case even two years […]

Russians Accuse Lithuania of Welcoming ‘Islamist Extremists’

April 23, 2014

Staunton, April 23 – Several Russian nationalist portals have segments with the title “the new is the well-forgotten old.” That is certainly proving to be true with some of the ideological tropes that Russian commentators are trying out now. Much of what they say appears to be little more than an updated version of an […]

Putin’s Program of ‘Empire and Dictatorship Rather than Nation State and Democracy’ Will End in Catastrophe, Analyst Says

April 22, 2014

Staunton, April 22 – Vladimir Putin’s “Russian world” project of “empire instead of a nation state and dictatorship instead of democracy” is far more popular his country than calls for the development of a civic nation, Mariya Snegova says, but it will end, as all other such projects in Russian history have, with “a catastrophe” […]