Staunton, May 17 – One of the most heinous and socially destructive aspects of Soviet policy was the Communist Party’s continuing efforts to encourage children to report on or even denounce their parents. That program may have helped the regime to stay in power but only at the cost of distrust and atomization of society. […]
Staunton, May 16 – – Reflecting tensions between the Circassians and the Russian authorities in the run up to the commemoration later this month of the 150th anniversary of the tsarist expulsion of their ancestors and of the readiness of Circassians to defend their rights and dignity, a group of Circassians blocked a highway last […]
Staunton, May 15 – A survey of Russian parliamentarians present and past shows that they are nearly unanimous in believing that the OSCE proposal about Ukraine shows that “the West is retreating” from its earlier positions on the conflict there but wants to do so in a “face-saving way.” As it often does on political […]
Staunton, May 14 – Polls show that many Russians now view their country as once again a great power as a result of the Crimean Anschluss, but that immediate emotional response while very real is neither accurate – this action alone is insufficient for such a status – nor likely to be any longer lasting […]
Staunton, May 12 – A government’s priorities and plans are most clearly shown in its budget, and over the last four years, the budgets Vladimir Putin has proposed and imposed are those of a leader preparing for war rather than someone concerned about the needs of the Russian people, according to Boris Nemtsov. In a […]
Staunton, May 10 – Russia has a military sufficient for some tasks, the head of the veterans organization in Naberezhny Chelny says, but it “cannot respond to the pressure which the NATO countries led by the US are putting on us,” an assessment that runs very much counter to the bombastic statements coming out of […]
Staunton, May 10 – Speaking in Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Crimea, President Vladimir Putin called on all countries “to respect the right of Russians to self-determination,” but he failed to note, Boris Vishnevsky points out, that there is no such right for peoples on the territory of the Russian Federation. In an Ekho Moskvy blog post […]
Staunton, May 10 – The Pew Research Center this week released the results of a poll it conducted in the Russian Federation concerning Russian attitudes toward the independence of any region or republic in that country. It found that 48 percent said they would support such actions if they reflected the popular will and that […]
Staunton, May 9 – A St. Petersburg activist has called for the establishment of a political party to represent the needs of the numerically smallest nations of the Russian Federation, a movement that he says should seek a quota system and other means to protect their rights and also to embrace ethnic Russians who live […]
Staunton, May 9 – Moscow commentators have been denouncing the West for launching “a new cold war” against Russia, and a large share of Western commentators have assumed that this is because the Russian leadership doesn’t want one. In fact, Moscow is desperate to have that the new-old paradigm be restored at least at the […]
