Russia has significantly escalated its rhetoric, warning Ukraine that there will be consequences if it continues it’s “anti-terror operation” and announcing military drills to combat the “Ukrainian military machine.” Yesterday’s liveblog can be found here. For an overview and analysis of this developing story see our latest podcast. Please help The Interpreter to continue providing […]
Staunton, April 23 – Russians want to live well in a strong state, according to discussions at the Valdai Club last fall. But an economist says Moscow’s failure to modernize the economy could soon force a choice between guns and butter – or even put Russia at risk having less of both. That Russians should want […]
Staunton, April 23 – Several Russian nationalist portals have segments with the title “the new is the well-forgotten old.” That is certainly proving to be true with some of the ideological tropes that Russian commentators are trying out now. Much of what they say appears to be little more than an updated version of an […]
Staunton, April 23 – The best way to understand the events of the last several months, Stanislav Belkovsky argues, is to view them as a repetition of the August 1991 coup with only this difference: the leader of this coup is Vladimir Putin and the target of his radical shifts is the Putin of the […]
Press freedom is threatened as Russian-backed gunmen detain several journalists, including an American. Tensions are mounting after two bodies, one belonging to a prominent politician, were found in Slavyansk, prompting Kiev to announce the restarting of their “anti-terror campaign” against the separatists. Yesterday’s liveblog can be found here. For an overview and analysis of this […]
Staunton, April 22 – Vladimir Pastukhov suggests that Ukraine now faces the choice of concluding a humiliating “Brest peace” with Moscow, in which it would yield an enormous portion of its territory and population to preserve itself in the hopes of recovering its losses in the future, or risk the possibility that it disappears altogether. […]
Staunton, April 21 – Latvia may be as prepared as any small country next to a very large one to defend itself against a military invasion. It has a modernized military, albeit one trained for peacekeeping rather than national defense, and it is a member of NATO, on whose Article Five Latvians rely. At least, […]
Staunton, April 21 – There is perhaps no better way to call attention to the way in which Vladimir Putin insists on one standard for his own country and a very different one for Ukraine and others than to imagine the position the Kremlin leader might have found himself in had he been asked what […]
Staunton, April 21 – The Geneva accords represent “a complete victory” for Vladimir Putin and “the complete capitulation of Europe and Ukraine,” which when translated out of diplomatic language gives the Kremlin leader “a mandate” to seize as much of Ukraine as he wants, according to Yuliya Latynina. On her Saturday evening program on Ekho […]
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is in Kiev today and is scheduled to meet with the leaders of the interim government. Meanwhile, separatists have captured more buildings, and Russian and the West continue to escalate the rhetoric, each blaming the other for an increasingly tense standoff. Yesterday’s liveblog can be found here. For an overview […]
