Staunton, July 19 – The two countries Moscow views as its closest partners, Belarus and Kazakhstan, have refused to join its sanctions campaign against Moldova, another indication, the editors of Nezavisimaya gazeta say today, that as a result of its recent actions, “Moscow is losing its allies.” That, in turn, suggests two things, the editors […]
Yesterday’s liveblog can be found here. For an overview and analysis of this developing story see our latest podcast. Please help The Interpreter to continue providing this valuable information service by making a donation towards our costs. View Ukraine: April, 2014 in a larger map For links to individual updates click on the timestamps. For […]
Staunton, July 28 – In part because they can get news not just from Moscow but from Ukraine and in part because they have close ties to both Russians and Ukrainians, Belarusians are now deeply split between those who back Russian policy in Ukraine and those who support the Ukrainian government. As important as this […]
Staunton, July 24 – The central Russian narrative on the emergence of the three modern nations of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians, a narrative on which Vladimir Putin relies, is that there was a single Russian nation a millennium ago and that Ukrainians and Belarusians were byproducts of Russian ethnogenesis, the result of outside interference. That […]
Staunton, July 10 – Yuliya Yemalyanovich, a Belarusian school girl from Baranovichi, has won an international Russian-language Olympiad in Moscow by talking about the Belarusian language in which she declared her commitment both to that language and to the nation which speaks it. She competed against representatives from the CIS, the Baltic countries, Georgia, Abkhazia […]
Staunton, July 9 – Even though the West has imposed sanctions and Russia has promoted ties, Alyaksandr Lukashenka “fears Russia more than he fears the West,” according to Andrey Vardomatsky, a Belarusian sociologist who says this reflects a general inclination among his countrymen to overestimate Russia’s importance relative to that of the West. And that […]
Staunton, July 6 – An article of faith among many commentators on Russia since the Crimean Anschluss is that the patriotic wave the Kremlin has promoted has swept across the entire country and is likely to be even stronger in traditional areas than in Moscow and other major urban centers. That view in some cases […]
Staunton, June 17 – No Russian is surprised to learn that Soviet-era archives are more accessible in Belarus, which the West routinely calls “the last dictatorship in Europe,” than they are in Russia, a reflection of underlying weaknesses in Russian society that mean it will not become part of Europe for at least a generation, […]
I like reading Paul Goble. He writes well and he has ample knowledge of our region. He seldom writes about Belarus, just mentioning it occasionally. In his recent piece, though, he looks at the case of my country: It’s time to Rethink the West’s Approach to Belarus. When I see titles like that I know exactly […]
Staunton, July 1 – Alyaksandr Lukashenka is the brutal ruler of Belarus, “the last dictator in Europe” to use the phrase often employed by Western diplomats and human rights activists. He has falsified elections to keep himself in power, he has imprisoned and exiled his political opponents, and he has trampled on the rights and […]
