Staunton, January 5 – Three Russian experts with whom Russkaya Planeta spoke say that while declines in the standard of living of many Russians in the coming year as a result of the economic crisis may lead to some protests about economic issues, any such demonstrations are unlikely to focus on high politics. On the […]
Yesterday’s live coverage of the Ukraine conflict 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 […]
Staunton, December 24 – Two reports this week, one suggesting that the events in Ukraine have distracted the attention of many Russians from ethnic conflicts at home and a second noting that the ruble’s collapse has in turn eclipsed Ukraine as an issue for many of them suggests an increasingly short-term approach by the population […]
Staunton, December 29 – Speaking to a meeting of 20,000 Chechen volunteers in Grozny yesterday, republic head Ramzan Kadyrov said that he and they are ready to perform tasks for Vladimir Putin “which can be solved only by volunteers” and not by “the regular army, air force, navy or nuclear forces.” “Putin has helped [the […]
Yesterday Russia announced a revised military doctrine, signed by President Vladimir Putin, that names NATO as the Kremlin’s main adversary and clarifies that Russia’s military reserves the right to respond to conventional threats with both nuclear and conventional weapons. This is no big change, since it only amplifies existing doctrine, but its explicit emphasis on […]
Staunton, December 22 – Vladimir Putin has agreed with proposals by Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu to require the heads of the federal subjects to bear responsibility for mobilization and fighting against diversionary forces, a step that makes them into something like tsarist-era governors general and could presage a new territorial delimitation of the country. At […]
Staunton, December 22 – Russians living in the largest cities, the people who benefited the most from the oil-driven boom of the last decade, now feel the greatest concern about the impact on their lives of the economic crisis because they are better informed than those in smaller ones and rural areas, a pattern that […]
December 2014 is the month Putin’s Russia was plunged into undeniable crisis. Between the dramatic drop in oil prices and the collapse of the ruble, under Western sanctions pressure, Russians are going into the new year in a dramatically different, and lessened, economic situation than the one they enjoyed at the beginning of the year […]
Staunton, December 23 – Chechen head Ramzan Kadyrov says that “traitors in the Kremlin, government and other power structures,” people who do not carry out the decisions of President Vladimir Putin, must be purged from office in order to improve the economy and block Western efforts to destabilize Russia. In an interview published in Izvestia yesterday, […]
Staunton, December 20 – In the minds of some, Vladimir Putin used his press conference December 18 to demonstrate his conviction that he will remain president of Russia forever, ever more Russian commentators are asking “What will be the situation after Putin?” Among those doing so is Daniil Kotsyubinsky, a historian and journalist, who gave […]
