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: […]
Staunton, March 12 – When Vladimir Putin decided a year ago to annex Crimea, he and his supporters expected that this would be “the first event in a chain of unending victories which would show the world the dangerousness of ‘ignoring’ Moscow’s appetites and instead convert the Russian Federation into the Soviet Union of the […]
Staunton, March 11 -Even though Vladimir Putin is extremely successful in managing the news about the big issues in Russian life, such as what he calls “the investigation” rather than the cover-up of the murder of Boris Nemtsov, he cannot control the flow of news items which directly or indirectly show the way in which […]
Staunton, March 11 – The new cold war that has begun in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine does not have the formal ideological shape of its predecessor, but Vladimir Putin very much has an ideological vision, Igor Eidman says, and it is one that tragically makes it more likely that this cold war […]
Staunton, March 11 – Vladimir Putin’s Anti-Maidan movement has received a great deal of media attention, but it will not be any more capable of stopping change and even revolutionary change in Russia once the number of dissatisfied Russians reaches “critical mass,” according to Dmitry Bykov. That has not yet happened, the Moscow commentator says, […]
Staunton, March 9 – Vladimir Putin’s plans to amalgamate smaller non-Russian federal subjects with larger and predominantly ethnic Russian regions, plans that have been on hold since 2008, is being challenged by a Perm activist who wants the Russian Supreme Court to overturn the inclusion of Komi-Permyak Autonomous Province into the new Perm region. The […]
Staunton, March 9 – In the increasingly Orwellian world that is Vladimir Putin’s Russia, one in which the lie is the truth, it is important to remember that “with rare exceptions,” the murders of those the authorities don’t like are “not solved. Sometimes, those who carried the out are found, but those who ordered them […]
Staunton, March 9 – Vladimir Putin’s acknowledgement that he personally decided upon and conducted a special operation to seize Crimea “opens a unique and limited-time window of opportunities” for the West to bring real pressure on him, divide his regime and force Moscow to change course, according to Slava Rabinovich. The Russian economist and blogger […]
Staunton, March 9 – It is a measure of just what a threat Vladimir Putin represents to neighboring countries that Aleksey Yanukevich, the leader of the Belarusian Popular Front Party, says that Alyaksandr Lukashenka, usually described as “the last dictator in Europe,” is now “a lesser evil” than the Kremlin imperialism the Kremlin leader is […]
Staunton, March 8 – Despite his efforts, Vladimir Putin is not a remake of Stalin and thus could be overthrown in a coup because he has not only violated the social contract he had with the Russian people but has with the murder of Boris Nemtsov shown that he is prepared to kill members of […]
