Staunton, March 5 – On the 62 anniversary of his death today, Stalin continues to cast an ever darker shadow over Russia, sparking debates about how he should best be remembered. But beyond these symbols, the influence of Stalin on the thinking of Vladimir Putin and his regime is increasingly obvious and strong, as Moscow […]
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. UPDATES BELOW Boris Nemtsov, opposition leader, has been shot dead two days before he was to lead a protest march against Russia’s war on Ukraine and […]
Staunton, February 24 – Valery Panyushkin today points to a development that, like the dog in the Sherlock Holmes story which didn’t bark, not everyone has noticed because it is about the absence of something rather than its presence – and that is the increasing lack of stories on Russian television about Russia. It has […]
Staunton, February 24 – The conflict in Ukraine is not one conflict but three: it is a conflict between the eastern and western portions of Ukraine, it is a conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and it is a conflict between Russia and the West, Vladimir Pastukhov says. And to resolve all three will require a […]
Staunton, February 24 – Both those who support Vladimir Putin and those who oppose him overestimate the Kremlin leader, Vitaly Portnikov says, with the former assuming there is nothing he cannot do and the latter explaining away their own shortcomings and failures by making the same assumption. As a result, the former assume that whatever […]
Staunton, February 23 — A “new stage” has begun in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, one that involves terrorist actions like those in the Chechen wars but “with this important modification: in this case, a nuclear power is suspected of terrorism” or possibly its “incompletely controlled militants,” according to Ilya Milshteyn. “This in general […]
Staunton, February 22 — Ever more often, life in Vladimir Putin’s world imitates not art but Soviet anecdotes. The latest move of his agents in occupied Crimea — to deny registration to and thus set the stage for shutting down Crimea’s QHA news agency — brings yet another of those anecdotes to mind. The story […]
Staunton, February 6 — Over the last two year period for which statistics are available, only 37 ethnic Russians moved from Estonia to the Russian Federation despite Moscow’s program for resettling what it calls “compatriots” and the regular complaints of Russian officials that Estonia is oppressing its ethnic Russian minority. In February 6 issue of […]
Staunton, February 6 – Like many countries, the Russian Federation suffers from many regional and ethnic tensions, any one of which could become a Donbas if an outside power provided it with assistance, a reality that both Moscow and many in the West appear to have forgotten, according to Ukrainian commentator Pavel Kazarin. In a […]
Staunton, February 5 — Some in the West and even in Ukraine are urging Kyiv to accept Vladimir Putin’s Anschluss of Crimea and its formation of “peoples republics” in the Donbas in order to resolve the crisis, but such calls are dangerously wrong because if Kyiv agrees to Moscow’s demands, Moscow will only make more, […]
