Staunton, March 12 – When Vladimir Putin decided a year ago to annex Crimea, he and his supporters expected that this would be “the first event in a chain of unending victories which would show the world the dangerousness of ‘ignoring’ Moscow’s appetites and instead convert the Russian Federation into the Soviet Union of the […]
Like so many times before in the last year in Ukraine, enthusiasm has been quickly extinguished and replaced with uncertainty and fear, eradicating exuberant hope with the imposition of external interests. The prospects of signing the European Union Association Agreement were replaced by blackmail from Russia to force Ukraine not to sign, the ouster of […]
Staunton, July 20 Soviet and Russian censuses have always been used for political purposes even if that has required massive falsification. Stalin scrapped the 1937 enumeration entirely, and scholars have identified massive distortions in the 2002 and 2010 counts. But rarely has Moscow announced in advance that its purposes were political, something which makes falsification […]
Staunton, July 16 – Western countries need to adopt a serious non-recognition policy concerning Russia’s illegal occupation of Crimea, including imposing real restrictions on firms Russian or otherwise which seek to use the ports and airports of the peninsula, according to Refat Chubarov, the Mejlis leader. In an interview with Mikhailo Glukhovsky of the Glavkom.ua […]
Staunton, 3 June – A group of scholars from around the world who study nationality issues in Eurasia are circulating an online petition calling on “all states, agencies, organizations and individuals” to speak out in defense of the rights of the Crimean Tatars and hold “the Russian authorities in illegal occupation of Crimea accountable for […]
Staunton, May 26 – Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the special arrangements it has made for it mean underscores the fact that the federal subjects of the Russian Federation are far from equal, a reality that undercuts Vladimir Putin’s pledge to create a common legal space in his country and one sure to set off […]
Staunton, May 23 – Vladimir Zorin, a former Russian nationalities minister, says that the Crimean Tatars continue to think about themselves in terms drawn from the Soviet past but have infused these terms with anti-Soviet attitudes and that this contradiction explains many of their current problems. In an interview given to Yuliya Taratura of TV […]
Staunton, May 23 Only at first glance does the Ukrainian political system appear to be weak and its Russian counterpart strong, according to Sabidzhan Badretdinov, but a closer focus shows that the Ukrainian system has far greater chances for lasting over the long haul than does the Russian, a reality that may explain some of […]
Staunton, May 22 – Occupation authorities rarely take good care of the environment of the territory they have seized, and the Russian Anschluss of Crimea is no exception, with the Russian ecological legislation and practice significantly less good than their Ukrainian counterparts, according to Volodimir Boreyko, head of the Kyiv Ecological-Cultural Center. Boreyko’s views on […]
Staunton, May 22 – For months, Moscow officials and commentators have complained about what they say is a double standard on the part of the West, arguing that Western governments and writers are condemning Russia for doing in Ukraine exactly what the US and the West more generally have done elsewhere. Such complaints are in […]
