Staunton, July 30 – Commentators in both Moscow and the West typically view the ideological competition in the post-Soviet countries as a simple one between pro-Russian and pro-Western groups, but in the Muslim-majority states, there is a third trend, the pro-Islamic one, and that is becoming stronger as the others and especially the Western one […]
Staunton, July 4 – If Azerbaijan and Turkey, two Turkic countries, adopt a principled position of support for the Crimean Tatars, Moscow will have to change its current approach to the Turkic nation on the peninsula and live up to its earlier promises, according to Refat Chubarov, the head of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis. In […]
Staunton, June 8 – Russia “at the present stage” should dispense with the office of prime minister since the president in fact makes all the key decisions, according to a Moscow commentator. Such a step would not only reduce costs by eliminating duplication in the bureaucracy but also end what has become “unique” kind of […]
Staunton, May 30 -Putin’s repressive policies in Crimea and in Moscow have distracted attention from two other disturbing developments: the tendency of regional leaders to curry favor by going beyond what the center has required and attempts by some post-Soviet regimes to use Moscow’s actions as a guide or cover for crackdowns of their own. […]
Staunton, April 23 – Not only have the number of people in the former non-Russian republics identifying as ethnic Russians fallen dramatically since 1991, but the number who speak Russian or who study it in school has fallen precipitously as well, a trend that means Vladimir Putin is reaching out to an ever-smaller group and […]
Staunton, April 19 – Aleksandr Dugin, the Eurasianist leader who enjoys enormous influence in the Kremlin, says that countries adjoining the Russian Federation “can preserve their territorial integrity only by maintaining good relations with Russia” and that those who cross Moscow can have no such expectations. In an interview published in Yerkramas, a newspaper directed […]
Staunton, April 6 – Aleksandr Dugin, who appears to be increasingly influential in Kremlin circles, says that Moscow views Baku’s UN vote on Ukraine a “an unfriendly act,” that “the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan is in Moscow’s hands,” and that “an Azerbaijan hostile to Russia will instantly cease its existence.” Dugin, who describes himself as […]
Staunton, March 26 – Vladimir Putin’s annexation of Crimea has not only opened a new divide between Moscow and the West. It has re-ordered relations among the former Soviet republics and that in turn has raised questions about the way such changes will affect the future of many unresolved conflicts there. In an article for Vestnik […]
Opposition leader Alexei Navalny published a statement (translated by The Interpreter) explaining why he did not attend the nationalist “Russian March” which was held on November 4. The march is an annual a protest against immigration and internal migration policies, as well as against the policies that allow employers to bring migrant workers to work […]
Few developments speak so well of how far Caucasian dictatorships have come since the grey days of the Soviet Union as the fabulously wealthy and incredibly investment-savvy 15-year-old male heir of Azerbaijan’s ruling family. When he was a mere 11 years old, Heydar Aliyev, the son of Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, purchased $44 million in […]
