Welcome to our column, Russia Update, where we will be closely following day-to-day developments in Russia, including the Russian government’s foreign and domestic policies. The previous issue is here, and see also our Russia This Week stories ‘Anti-Maidan’ Launched by Nationalists, Cossacks, Veterans, Bikers and The Guild War – How Should Journalists Treat Russian State […]
Staunton, September 18 – Like Argentinians in the 1950s and 1960s, Russians are focusing on politics to the extent that they do not see the economic catastrophe for the future that Moscow’s current policies guarantee – decades of stagnation and missed opportunities for a better life, according to Konstantin Sonin. The Higher School of Economics […]
Staunton, August 14 – Ever more Russians are relying on private plots at their dachas or on farms for food as the sanctions regime tightens, a development that could serve as an indication that social clashes might occur. At the same time, ever more of them are pushing for setting up private and religious cemeteries […]
Staunton, July 24 – Although Russians now say they support Vladimir Putin’s assertive foreign policy, their attitude may change if Moscow introduces new taxes and improving its tax collection program, efforts that experts say will lead to a decline in their standard of living and an increase in the size of the country’s shadow economy. […]
Updated Daily. Refugees continue to flee armed conflict in southeastern Ukraine into Russia, but questions remain about how many of them there are, as both official and news reports differ substantially, and international relief organizations and journalists are not let into the border towns under a state of emergency. The retreat of Col. Igor Strelkov […]
Staunton, May 24 – Vladimir Putin began pulling Russian forces back from the Ukrainian border and distancing himself from the secessionists in east Ukraine after his visit to Beijing convinced him that China, however useful tactically, is a long-term threat to Russia and that Moscow needs the West as a counterbalance to Chinese power, according […]
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. An interactive map of the situation: View Ukraine: April, 2014 in a larger map For links to individual […]
This is a dispatch from Kharkiv, written before the referendum vote this past weekend. – Ed. Kharkiv, Ukraine — Two of Ukraine’s eastern regions, Donetsk and Lugansk, are holding a referendum to establish an autonomous republic in their regions. In neighboring Kharkiv, pro-Russian separatists would like to see the same. Oleg — a young, well-educated, […]
Staunton, May 12 – Vladimir Putin’s system represents a combination of “all the worst features of capitalism and socialism,” a fusion that represents “’negative convergence’ and one that has created “a monster,” according to Igor Eidman, a Russian sociologist and commentator who now lives in Germany. In an essay on Kasparov.ru today, Eidman notes that […]
Staunton, May 3 – Despite the explosive growth in income inequality in Russia since 1991, the views of the Russian rich and Russian poor there are far less different and distinctive than many think, a survival from Soviet times suggesting that no “culture of poverty” has yet been formed there, according to a Moscow scholar. […]
