Staunton, September 24 – Like its Soviet predecessors, the Putin regime has adopted three strategies in dealing with the non-Russian quarter of the population: increasing repression, divide-and-rule efforts within these communities and among them, and suppressing the dissemination of information about their plight. But these strategies are proving less effective than they once were, the […]
Tag: Estonia
Ukraine Liveblog Day 218: DNR Claims Artillery Withdrawn While Continuing To Attack Airport
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 […]
Moscow Laying Groundwork for Ukrainian Scenario in the Baltic States
Staunton, September 16 – The Russian government is laying the groundwork for a Ukrainian scenario in the Baltic countries, arguing that the three are mistreating ethnic Russians, that the West has failed to oppose such actions, and that Moscow is compelled under the circumstances to work to protect these members of “the Russian world.” Konstantin […]
Estonians Believe in Higher Powers but Not in God, Lauristin Says
Staunton, September 10 – Even as Russians are being offered the notion that Putin is God and some are telling jokes with the punchline that the difference between Putin and God is that God doesn’t think he’s Putin, a new study by Marju Lauristin provides an important glimpse into the nature of the understanding of […]
25 Years After, Europe Still Not Whole or Free
The following is a speech delivered by Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves at the Europe Conference in Oslo on 2 September 2014. It is reprinted from the website of the president of Estonia. The “25 Years After” is a reference to anti-communist democratic revolutions that began in 1989 in Eastern Europe and the fall of […]
The US-Baltic Alliance at 75
Staunton, September 3 – US President Barack Obama’s visit to Tallinn today comes almost exactly 75 years after the United States and the three Baltic countries formed one of the most remarkable alliances of the 20th century. (An Estonian translation of this article appeared in Tallinn’s Eesti Paevaleht.) That alliance, which for nearly 50 years took […]
Ukraine LiveBlog Day 198: President Obama Travels to Estonia to Meet Baltic Leaders
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 […]
Putin Believes He Can Win a War with NATO, Piontkovsky Says
Staunton, August 8 – “No state or regime goes to war firmly convinced that it will lose it,” Andrey Piontkovsky says, and Vladimir Putin is no exception: if he goes to war with NATO and even if he escalates that conflict by using nuclear weapons, he will be acting on the basis of a belief […]
Russian Speakers Abroad ‘Not a Community, Not a Diaspora, and Not a Single Ethnos’
Staunton, May 16 – Vladimir Putin routinely asserts that Russian speakers abroad, a category which includes both those of ethnic Russian background and others who use Russian in their daily lives, are not only a single nation but one that requires the continuing protection of the Russian state. But a new study shows that the […]
Refusing to ‘Die for Narva’ Would Be End of NATO and the West, Piontkovsky Says
Staunton, April 29 – The Kremlin thought it had a winning propaganda theme offered up by some in the United States by “the sacramental question: ‘Do you want to die for Narva?’” Andrey Pionkovsky says, because in fact no one in the West “will ever go to war with Russia in the defense of Estonia” […]