Staunton, September 27 – On September 27, a group of Volga Tatar nationalists demonstrated in Kazan against Russian persecution of Crimean Tatars, an action that not only reinforces the ties between the two Turkic peoples but also highlights the way in which what Moscow is doing in Crimea is increasingly resonating among non-Russians inside the […]
Staunton, September 25 – According to experts surveyed by Novyye Izvestiya concerning changing budgetary priorities of the Russian government, “2015 promises to be the last year of relative stability” in Russia before belt-tightening and stagnation of the kind that recalls the period which led to “the collapse of the Soviet empire.” In the September 25 […]
As the guns begin to fall silent over Europe’s newest frozen conflict (or at least some of the guns), joining a long and terribly depressing line of conflicts such as Transdniester, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the exact opposite is happening to Russia’s defense policy and military plans in the region. Russia continues to fly provocative […]
Staunton, September 24 – Igor Semivolos, director of the Kyiv Center for Near Eastern Research, says that the Crimean Tatars must prepare themselves for what had been unthinkable only a few months ago: their forcible deportation from their homeland by the Russian occupiers for the second time, an action that would constitute a clear “crime […]
Yesterday’s liveblog can be found here. An archive of our liveblogs can be found here. For an overview and analysis of this developing story see our latest podcast. Please help The Interpreter to continue providing this valuable information service by making a donation towards our costs. View Ukraine: April, 2014 in a larger map For […]
Staunton, September 17 – Russia can annex South Ossetia without worrying about the reaction of the West, Yana Amelina says, but it must do so in the near future or both Russia and South Ossetia will face “quite dangerous geopolitical explosions” in the Caucasus given the reordering of power relations in that region. Amelina, a […]
Staunton, September 17 – Vladimir Putin has no need of Chechnya, Abkhazia, South Ossetia or Crimea, Aleksandr Podrabinek says. He has moved against all of them “not for territory but for his own self-assertion and personal power, things which only the state of war can guarantee him.” That is how Putin began his rise to […]
Yesterday’s liveblog can be found here. An archive of our liveblogs can be found here. For an overview and analysis of this developing story see our latest podcast. Please help The Interpreter to continue providing this valuable information service by making a donation towards our costs. View Ukraine: April, 2014 in a larger map For […]
Staunton, September 12 – Konstantin Zatulin, the director of the Russian Institute for CIS Countries, has bluntly described Moscow’s war aims in Ukraine as directed toward the establishment of complete control over Ukraine’s foreign and domestic policies and a privileged position in that country for the Russian language and the Moscow Patriarchate. Speaking in Sevastopol […]
Staunton, September 8 – The current ceasefire ends one phase of the war between Russia and Ukraine making this a good time to consider the impact of the conflict in the broadest terms, as Moscow commentator Konstantin Gaaze does so in ten questions and answers. Gaaze’s first question is “Why did we (they) act as […]
