Staunton, November 24 – Putinism is “a pseudo-religious and quasi-political cult” which has arisen over the course of the last year and which has “consolidated society around Putin,” including many who were at the level of political ideas opposed to the Kremlin leader, according to Fedor Krasheninnikov. The Yekaterinburg political commentator argues in an essay […]
When Tsar Nicholas II abdicated his throne in 1917, he addressed neither the Russian people nor the Provisional Government, but rather the Chief of Staff of the Russian Army. This was because the Russian army was the last remaining arbiter of stability in the country which, as historian Richard Pipes noted, “…in Nicholas’s eyes the […]
Staunton, August 8 – Putinism, Igor Eidman says, is “a combination of the practice and ideology of the authoritarian regime of Putin, which operates on a corrupt bureaucratic oligarchy and is in many respects close to a fascist dictatorship,” with its “aggressive annexationist foreign policy, state-monopoly capitalism, force structures, and chauvinism and traditionalism” promoted by […]
Staunton, April 4 – Vladimir Putin’s statements and actions concerning Crimea and Ukraine are not ad hoc responses but rather represent a new “’Putin doctrine’” for Russian action in foreign affairs, a doctrine that dispenses with many of the most fundamental principles on which the international system has operated, according to Vladimir Ryzhkov. In a […]
Putin and Russia seem to have a seemingly endless ability to spend money to support the country’s political aspirations. Whether it’s the mindboggling $50 billion for Putin’s pet project on the Sochi Olympics (up from Putin’s initial estimate of $12 billion, with which he personally used to lobby the IOC in Guatemala), the $2 billion […]
