Staunton, April 13 – The vehemence of Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s opposition to Moscow’s proposal for the federalization of Ukraine suggests that this Russian demand may not be an ad hoc position reflecting uniquely Ukrainian situation but part of a broader strategy to break and ultimately re-subordinate neighboring countries. Not only would such an approach […]
Staunton, April 13 – Non-ethnic or civic Russian [rossiisky] nationalism isn’t nationalism at all but rather is a means to hold back genuine ethnic Russian [russky] nationalism and to keep it under the control of an authoritarian and pre-modern political system, according to the editor of Sputnik i Pogrom. In an article entitled Ethnic Russians […]
Staunton, April 13 – Irina Yarovaya, the chairman of the Duma Security Committee, says that “the task of the state is to ensure unity of education … and [thus] a single cultural space,” with “variations” allowed only for those children who are mentally handicapped, an attitude that threatens the development of Russians and non-Russians alike. […]
Staunton, April 13 – For the last several years, many Russian commentators have talked about Russians who have converted to Islam and thereby become even more anti-Russian than ordinary Muslims. Now, a Russian nationalist is focusing on the reality that at least some ethnic Russians are assimilating to other nations and following the same path. […]
Staunton, April 12 – Boris Slavin, an aide to former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, says that in his “personal” view, “sooner or later the restoration of a state like the USSR will be achieved,” although he said that “of course, this will not be a unification in the style of the Soviet Union.” He says […]
Staunton, April 12 – If Kyiv were forced to introduce Russian-style federalism in Ukraine as Moscow is demanding, the consequences would be that “the sphere of use of the Russian language would not increase” as many imagine “but contract,” according to Kirill Yankov, a member of the Yabloko Party and a researcher at the Moscow […]
Staunton, April 12 – Vladimir Putin insists that his moves in Ukraine are motivated by a desire to protect ethnic Russians, Russian speakers and, Moscow’s latest category, “pro-Russian people” who do not want to live under Kyiv, a view that has been uncritically accepted by large numbers of Russians in the Russian Federation and by […]
Staunton, April 12 – The Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church has always used priests from Russia to spread its influence and that of Moscow more generally in the former Soviet republics, but now the Moscow Islamic University has announced a new twist on that tactic: it will train Russian-speaking mullahs for the Muslims […]
Staunton, April 12 – The Russian government is celebrating what it says is a success in its battle to reduce alcohol consumption by pointing to a decline of seven percent in vodka sales in 2013. But more than three out of four Russians say they are drinking as much or more as in the past, […]
Staunton, April 10 – The continuing and in some places accelerating flight of ethnic Russians from non-Russian republics of the Russian Federation not only recalls a similar pattern from the union republics at the end of Soviet times but undercuts Vladimir Putin’s Russification program and is emboldening the titular nationalities. This general trend is highlighted […]
