From fly-bys and barrel rolls to an unprecedented level of submarine activity, Russian military aggression has escalated sharply in recent weeks. So has the Kremlin’s rhetoric
Vladimir Putin has learned that being a global troublemaker pays dividends. He’s discovered that being a big part of the problem assures that you are treated as a big part of the solution. He understands that the politics of blackmail and geopolitical extortion can work wonders. Before Putin intervened in Syria’s civil war nearly six […]
The Daily Vertical is a video primer for Russia-watchers that appears Monday through Friday. Viewers can suggest topics via Twitter @PowerVertical or on the Power Vertical Facebook page. A transcript of today’s Daily Vertical can be foundhere.
Staunton, November 8 – What Russians now have in the Russian Federation is a Soviet system without communism and its administrative arrangements, and what they dream of is “a Soviet empire without communists,” an entity not equivalent to the tsarist empire as some think but one that reflects their memories of the USSR. That is […]
Staunton, May 15 – Russian commentators have talked openly about dividing up Ukraine and Moldova in order to support ethnic Russian communities there and weaken these two countries, but now one Moscow writer has taken such ideas further and called for the dividing up of Romania in support of Russian national interests in the Balkans. […]
This week, Boston College Professor Matt Sienkiewicz and Interpreter Magazine’s managing editor James Miller discuss the impact of Russia’s annexation of Crimea on geopolitics. Will we see a new Cold War? A Russia-China alliance? Russia isolated on the world stage? Perhaps this crisis will mean that the world’s superpowers, locked in an unending struggle, lose […]
Staunton, March 28 – The United Nations General Assembly yesterday approved a resolution declaring the Moscow-organized “referendum” in Crimea illegal. The UN vote, of course, has no legal force, although it does highlight the emergence of new divisions in the international community, divisions that will certainly outlast the current crisis. One hundred countries, including the […]
Russia has officially annexed Crimea, and Ukrainian forces stationed in military bases on the peninsula have until Friday to evacuate to mainland Ukraine. 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 […]
Last week, Senegalese commandos borded the Russian fishing vessel Oleg Naydenov, which Senegal claims was fishing illegally in its waters. The Guardian reports: The trawler, the Russian-owned factory ship Oleg Naydenov, which regularly fishes off the west African coast, was boarded by armed Senegalese commandos near the maritime border with Guinea-Bissau last week and escorted back […]
