NATO Won’t Do More than Express Concern If Putin Attacks Another Former Soviet Republic, Illarionov Says 2016-09-17 17:21:55 Staunton, VA, September 15, 2016 – If Vladimir Putin sends his forces to seize any of the former Soviet republics — including the three Baltic states which are NATO members — the Western alliance won’t do anything more […]
Staunton, October 11 – Estimating the real costs, direct and indirect, of a military conflict is always difficult because so many factors need to be considered, but Moscow economist Andrey Illarionov says that even if one ignores direct human and property losses, Vladimir Putin’s wars are currently costing Russia approximately US $94 billion every year. […]
Staunton, September 24 The apparent agreement of US President Barack Obama to meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin next week in New York to discuss Syrian affairs represents a new Munich in which one side focuses on “peace in our time” and the other pockets recognition of his aggression while planning for more, Andrey Illarionov […]
Staunton, July 5 – “Putin has finally decided” to block all of the ways out from “the dead end into which he has driven himself and Russia,” Andrey Illarionov says, prompting the West to oppose him more vigorously, creating a disaster for Russia, and setting the stage for the ultimate restoration of Ukrainian control over […]
Staunton, June 6 – Russian opposition leader Aleksey Navalny, like many others in Russia and abroad, says that referenda both past and future are the only basis for resolving the conflict over Crimea and that earlier votes in the Saarland provide a useful analogy on how to proceed. But Russian commentator Andrey Illarionov says that […]
Staunton, April 16 — The number of people in Crimea identifying as ethnic Ukrainians has fallen by 232,000 between the 2001 census conducted by the Ukrainian government and the 2014 census conducted by the Russian occupation authorities, a decline that has reduced the percentage of ethnic Ukrainians on the peninsula from 24.0 to 15.1 percent. […]
Staunton, March 12 — Andrey Illarionov, an economist who earlier served as an advisor to Vladimir Putin, says that future historians may describe what is happening in Moscow now as “a conspiracy of the generals” — or more precisely as a behind-the-scenes battle between a former lieutenant colonel (Putin) and three senior generals. As the […]
Staunton, December 2 – Many in Ukraine and elsewhere think that falling oil prices or increased Western sanctions or more sensible people in his entourage will convince Vladimir Putin to change course and end his aggressive policies, but they are wrong because none of these things will affect Putin’s pursuit of his goals, according to […]
Staunton, November 13 – Vladimir Putin is proposing the kind of grand bargain to Barack Obama that Hitler proposed to Neville Chamberlain and then to Joseph Stalin, in which the West would accept Russia’s annexation of Crimea in exchange for Moscow’s cooperation on Iran, according to Andrey Illarionov. Chamberlain rejected that bargain but Stalin did […]
Staunton, September 27 – No one in Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania should be sleeping peacefully given the threat that Vladimir Putin poses to all three and the failure of the West to stand up to the Kremlin leader in Ukraine or adequately prepare to defend the three Baltic NATO member countries, according to Andrey Illarionov. […]
