Staunton, May 4 – Because Vladimir Putin did not stop after the Crimean Anschluss, the Kremlin leader now faces a Hobson’s choice of his own making: if he expands his aggression in Ukraine, he will face a Ukrainian people in arms backed by the West, but if he does not introduce forces there, he will […]
Updated Daily. The tragic deaths of 46 people in clashes in Odessa and the fire at the Trade Unions Building have received wide coverage in the Russian media and blogosphere, but from diametrically opposed perspectives, depending on the degree of independence from the state and degree of sympathy with the EuroMaidan movement versus the Kremlin-backed […]
Staunton, May 3 – Despite the explosive growth in income inequality in Russia since 1991, the views of the Russian rich and Russian poor there are far less different and distinctive than many think, a survival from Soviet times suggesting that no “culture of poverty” has yet been formed there, according to a Moscow scholar. […]
Staunton, May 3 – Despite Moscow’s promises and expectations, its Customs Union is “clearly insufficient for stimulating cooperation in the Russian-Kazakhstan border regions,” according to a Russian expert. For that to change, he says the two sides would have to develop something like the EU’s Euro-Region program — something they are very from doing. The […]
Staunton, May 1 – Vladimir Putin is taking care of his basic electorate, pensioners and government employees, at the expense of the private sector, Yevgeny Gontmakher says. And because Moscow increasingly lacks the funds to do so, the Kremlin leader will take ever more money from business, a shift popular in the near term but […]
Staunton, May 1 – Ukrainians have “enormous experience” with partisan war and will draw on it if Kyiv surrenders any more Ukrainian territory to Russia or if Moscow seizes any on its own, according to Yuriy Shukhevych, the leader of the Ukrainian National Assembly-Ukrainian National Self Defense (UNO-UNSO) organization. Shukhevych and the UNO-UNSO are often […]
Staunton, May 1 – Today, for the first time since the end of the Soviet Union and reflecting what Russian commentators say is a patriotic “wave” and “nostalgia” for the USSR, a May Day parade is passing through Red Square — although Vladimir Putin is not atop the Lenin Mausoleum, as his Soviet predecessors were, […]
Staunton, May 1 – Fewer than one Russian in five has been beyond the borders of what was the Soviet Union in the last five years, and only one in 16 currently travels abroad on a regular basis. But the declining value of the ruble as a result of Moscow’s actions in Ukraine and Western […]
Staunton, April 30 – Vladimir Putin will seek to expand Russia’s influence and control right up to the borders of NATO because the West has shown that it is not ready to interfere in any serious way to defend countries that have not been able to get into the Western alliance up to now, according […]
Staunton, April 29 Aleksandr Dugin, the influential leader of the Eurasian Movement, says that Vladimir Putin is not just being attacked by “a fifth column” of opposition figures but also is being undermined by what he calls “a sixth column” consisting of those within his regime who are actively working to undermine the Kremlin leader. […]
