Staunton, 4 June – Saying that it is a very good thing Russian environmental activists are “still free” to meet, Yeveniya Chirikova, a leader of the movement for the Ecological Defense of Moscow City and Region says that Moscow’s repressive actions have created the need for a new term analogous to “prisoner of conscience” –“prisoner […]
Staunton, 3 June – A petition calling for a ban on the operations of the Moscow Patriarchate on Ukrainian territory highlights in the religious sphere a dilemma Ukrainians face elsewhere as well: If Kyiv moves to protect itself, it will be criticized for violating human rights; if it doesn’t, it may be allowing Moscow institutions […]
Staunton, 3 June – A group of scholars from around the world who study nationality issues in Eurasia are circulating an online petition calling on “all states, agencies, organizations and individuals” to speak out in defense of the rights of the Crimean Tatars and hold “the Russian authorities in illegal occupation of Crimea accountable for […]
Staunton, 1 June – If the leaders of Kazakhstan or Belarus adopt policies like those Ukraine did, there is no guarantee that those two countries might suffer the fate that the eastern regions of Ukraine are now facing, according to Valery Tishkov, director of the Moscow Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology and a former Russian […]
Staunton, 1 June – The Moscow Patriarchate is no longer in lockstep with the Kremlin on Ukraine, the result of the reactions of other Christian groups in Ukraine, its own corporate interests, and pressure from its own congregations who have a different view of the future than do many in the hierarchy, according to Roman […]
Staunton, 1 June – Not one of the 2,000 Muslims currently living in Ukraine’s Luhansk Region favors secession or transferring their region to the Russian Federation, according to the leader of that community. Instead, even though many of them come as he does from parts of Russia, they are proud to be citizens of Ukraine. […]
Staunton, 1 June – Russia’s economic development ministry is preparing legislation that would allow Moscow to seize significant amounts of land in Crimea on an accelerated basis in the name of promoting economic development, a measure that is modelled on the one Vladimir Putin used in the run-up to the Sochi Olympics. According to a […]
Staunton, 1 June – One of the problems that Moscow propagandists face is that many of the arguments they put out for political change in Ukraine apply with equal or even greater force to the Russian Federation and thus have the potential to spark demands inside the latter country that the Kremlin is very much […]
Staunton, May 30 – Now that the Chechens have become involved as foot soldiers in Vladimir Putin’s campaign to destabilize and potentially occupy portions of Ukraine, it is worth comparing Moscow’s “counter-terrorist” campaign in the North Caucasus with what Kyiv is doing in its eastern region. Such a comparison is especially useful now because it […]
Staunton, May 28 – In what he describes as an act of “political bookkeeping,” Andrey Lipsky, the deputy chief editor of Novaya Gazeta describes what Russia has gained and what it has lost so far as a result of the Ukrainian crisis, thus providing a useful checklist of the balance now and its likely direction […]
