President Vladimir Putin has made a number of personnel shuffles, removing the governor of Russian-occupied Sevastopol and putting a KGB general in charge of Kaliningrad Region bordering Baltics.
Staunton, June 26 – In the age of the Internet, it isn’t enough for an authoritarian ruler to control what appears in newspapers and on television. If he really wants to isolate his opponents, he must try to intimidate journalists into not covering those the leader doesn’t like lest they post their reports online and […]
Staunton, May 26 – Vladimir Putin’s party of power, United Russia, failed to win a single seat in elections to the 15-member city council of Baltiysk in Kaliningrad, an indication of just how soft support for his party and possibly for him is — and of what steps Russian opposition groups may be able to […]
Staunton, May 12 – People of decency and good will around the world have been horrified by Vladimir Putin’s defense this week of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact which made Hitler and Stalin allies, opened the way to World War II, and allowed the Soviet Union to occupy Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, portions of Poland and Bessarabia […]
Staunton, April 20 — Gas pipeline issues have attracted far more attention, but a plan for a unified energy network among European Union members appears likely to have serious consequences for Kaliningrad, the non-contiguous Russian exclave that is bordered by Poland and Lithuania, both of whom are EU members, according to Nezavisimaya Gazeta. In a […]
Staunton, April 10 – Faced with superior NATO forces in the larger Baltic Sea region and the threat they pose in the first instance to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, Leonid Nersisyan, military observer for the Regnum news agency, says that Moscow is prepared to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear powers which now oppose it. […]
Staunton, March 5 – The purpose of terrorism is to terrorize, to suggest that old rules and old expectations no longer apply and thereby increase uncertainty and fear. That explains why someone like Kseniya Sobchak has suggested that she is next on Putin’s list now that the Kremlin has killed Boris Nemtsov and why an […]
Staunton, January 26 – Russian officials insist that food prices have gone up in Kaliningrad only 22 percent over the last year, but a survey of markets and stores found that they have in fact risen 50 to 60 percent, a development that is forcing Kaliningraders to draw down their savings and cut back their […]
Staunton, January 12 – Kaliningrad — or Königsberg as it was historically called and is known to many of its residents — because of its geographic situation as an exclave and the current economic and political situation “simply cries out for the need for separation from [Moscow], for independence and the setting up of a […]
Staunton, October 31 – The situation of Kaliningrad, the non-contiguous part of the Russian Federation, has long been “a headache” for the Kremlin, but the recent rise in East-West tensions has so exacerbated the problems of that region that this week Vladimir Putin convened a meeting to discuss what should be done. According to Nezavisimaya […]
