Staunton, March 20 – When Ramzan Kadyrov promised that Chechnya would help rebuild the economy of Crimea after its absorption into the Russian Federation this week, most observers concluded that he was just being his usual flamboyant self. But the truth is more complicated and potentially more disturbing. As journalist Andrey Pertsev points out on […]
Staunton, March 20 – Vladimir Putin may be seeking to restore a Russian empire, but his annexation of Crimea is destroying many of the things that had tied the former Soviet republics together and simultaneously allowed Moscow to be able to count on influence across that region and permitted outside analysts to speak of it […]
Staunton, March 19 – In the past, “every country had its own map, each of which was more or less different,” a Georgian writer says, but with Marco Polo and Google, most came to accept a similar map of the world, one in which borders are clear and fixed. But Russians remain an exception. According […]
Staunton, March 19 – Arguing that “after the Crimean events, the world will not be what it was” because key element of the previous international system – the inviolability of national borders – has been finally and irrevocably violated, four Moscow analysts say that this opens the door to five possible “new world orders” in […]
Staunton, March 19 – Vladimir Putin’s push to transform Ukraine into a genuinely federal state and his invocation of the state of ethnic Russians as the reason for his intervention in Ukraine is having an impact at home, leading some to ask why federalism should be only “an export good” and others to demand that […]
Staunton, March 19 – Despite Vladimir Putin’s assurance that he won’t seek to absorb more of Ukraine than he has done already, the Kremlin leader almost certainly will continue his offensive approach there and elsewhere lest he look to himself or to his supporters as if he is backing down in the face of international […]
In this week’s edition of The Interpreter Podcast, Interpreter’s managing editor James Miller speaks with New York University’s Andrew S. Bowen about Ukraine: Why should we care, how does it effect the West, and what happens next? See our Ukraine front page for the latest news and analysis. Click here to hear our previous podcasts. […]
Following an attack on a Ukrainian military cartography building in Simferopol that left a Ukrainian soldier and a member of Crimea’s defence forces dead, the Ukrainian naval headquarters in Sevastopol has been taken over. Will other military installations also come under attack? Yesterday’s liveblog can be found here. For an overview and analysis of this developing […]
Staunton, March 18 – If Russia succeeds with its Anschluss of Crimea, Moscow will be in a position to dramatically expand its naval base a Sevastopol and thus change the military balance in the Black and Mediterranean seas, an outcome that could have geopolitical consequences as severe as Vladimir Putin’s efforts to dismantle and humble […]
Staunton, March 18 – The two most senior leaders of the Crimean Tatars, Mustafa Cemilev, the former leader of the Mejlis, and Refat Chubarov, the current head of that body, say that many in their nation fear that Moscow will try to deport them from their lands again and insist that they will resist any […]
