Staunton, March 26 — It is clear that Vladimir Putin has gone further in his confrontation with the West than many of those around him would prefer; but just as was the case with Adolf Hitler, they will threaten to oust him only when he begins to suffer defeat and his regime is at the […]
Staunton, March 23 — Many people around world have been focusing on and been horrified by the meeting of representatives of extreme right, even fascist parties in St. Petersburg over the weekend, but fewer have paid attention to another aspect of Moscow’s outreach — to separatists around the world whose efforts may help Vladimir Putin […]
Staunton, March 23 — Not all, but “the overwhelming majority of Germans sincerely believed” what Hitler said, just as not all but the overwhelming majority of Russians sincerely believe what Vladimir Putin says, according to Semyon Gluzman. But when the Kremlin leader falls, most Russians will say as the Germans did in 1945: “’We didn’t […]
Staunton, March 20 — In the USSR, it was sometimes said, there was no sex because that subject could not be addressed directly in the media. However that might have been, a new truth is emerging, in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, there will be no suicides by those who cannot get the medicines they need to […]
Staunton, March 20 — Since the Maidan, a new Kyiv poll shows, the share of Ukrainians favoring EU integration has risen from 41 percent to 47.2 percent since the Maidan, while the share of those backing integration with Moscow has fallen from 35 percent to 12.3 percent. At the same time, the portion of Ukrainians […]
Staunton, March 16 — A Russian nationalist with a long track record of hatred toward Belarus says that, on the basis of the logic Moscow has used to annex Crimea, Moscow should take back the portions now within the borders of the Belarusian Republic that were once part of the RSFSR. Not only does his […]
Staunton, March 16 — In scathing terms, Elizaveta Aleksandrova-Zorina denounces the ways in which the Putin regime has promoted Russian national pride in order to conceal the way in which those near the throne are stealing the country blind and to suppress any concerns about human rights and individual dignity. In a commentary in Moskovsky […]
Staunton, March 13 — Most discussions about divisions in Ukraine focus either on the differences of east and west or on those between Russian speakers and Ukrainian speakers, but a deeper and more important divide, one cutting across both of the others, Sergey Koshman writes, is between those who live in the cities and those […]
Staunton, March 12 — Because of widespread poverty, brittle authoritarian regimes, and the impact of developments in neighboring Afghanistan, the Central Asian countries have long been a breeding ground for Islamist terrorists. But now there is a new component in this mix: the abandoned families of those who have gone to Russia to work. Students […]
Staunton, March 12 — Yesterday, Nikolay Patrushev, secretary of Putin’s Security Council, warned that Russia will face a serious terrorist threat if and when militants from Russia who have been fighting with various Islamist groups in the Middle East return home. But he said nothing about what may be a more immediate and serious threat: […]
