US-based Russian journalist Kseniya Kirillova recalls Aleksandr Shchetinin, the Russian-Ukrainian journalist behind the site Novy Region-2 who died in mysterious circumstances the day before Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was killed, and others who have died in the intervening period in what appear to be somewhat mysterious circumstances.
Ukrainian reactions to the lead of the Vladislav Surkov documents – with some seeing them as confirming what they already knew about Moscow’s plans and others suggesting they were a Ukrainian plot to justify new repression, calls attention to “the most dangerous consequence of Russian active measures, Kseniya Kirillova says.
As the world’s attention shifts, many Russians and many in the West are telling themselves that Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine has been a war like any other regardless of whether they support it or not. But in fact, as Arkady Babchenko points out, this has been something else, “a point of bifurcation” and a fundamental turning point in Russian history.
Staunton, December 14 – Moscow’s primary goal in Syria is not to support its ally Bashar Al-Assad against all challenges but rather to destabilize the situation in the Middle East, undercutting the influence of the West and boosting its own; and to that end, it will be quite prepared to sacrifice the Syrian dictator, according […]
Staunton, December 9, 2015 An FSB defector says that Moscow is very closely tied to ISIS and has been involved with groups that have carried out terrorist actions in Europe. He has twice passed a polygraph examination. But many are skeptical of his claims because of the absence of sources that directly confirm his claims. […]
Staunton, September 29 No one should conclude that the current lull in the fighting in the Donbass marks the end of Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine, according to Valentin Badrak, head of the Kyiv Center for the Military, Conversion and Disarmament. Instead, it points to a shift toward more subversive actions inside the rest of Ukraine. […]
Staunton, September 22 The Mensk Center for Strategic and Foreign Policy Research says that Moscow has not succeeded in gaining the agreement of the Belarusian side to the establishment of a Russian airbase in Belarus but is going ahead anyway, confident that it can push Mensk around given Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s lack of allies elsewhere. In […]
Staunton, August 19 – An increasingly common theme in many commentaries about Crimea and the Donbass is that Ukrainians should not want them back. Pro-Russian attitudes in the those regions would, if they were again included within the borders of the Ukrainian state, make them a classic “fifth column.” But that is “yet another lie […]
Staunton, July 13 – The conflict in Mukachevo is a direct threat to Ukraine because it raises the question as to whether Kyiv has lost its monopoly on the use of force, something every effective state must maintain. And consequently, Moscow wants to promote the fighting there as much as possible to make its case […]
Staunton, June 10 – Picking up on the increasingly alarmist rhetoric of Kremlin outlets about the possibility of war, a Urals blogger who openly flaunts his ties with the FSB yesterday posted three commentaries in which he said that Russians must prepare for a major war with the West, according to Kseniya Kirillova. Sergey Kolyasnikov, […]
