In 1983, Yury Andropov famously told the Communist Party Plenum that “if we speak openly, we still do not know sufficiently the society in which we live and work.” The same thing could be said of Vladimir Putin.
Staunton, November 10 – Speaking at the Valdai Club meeting this year, Vladimir Putin said that “trade and sanction wars are the reality of the contemporary global economy” and are “used among other things as instruments of unfair competition.” But he is wrong, Vladislav Inozemtsev says. “In the contemporary world, sanctions are not becoming the […]
Staunton, November 4 – Today, Russians mark a holiday that lays stress on “religiosity over secularism, national uniqueness over universal values, and stability over development,” values few besides its creator, Vladimir Putin, would have seen as its core when he established this holiday eleven years ago, according to Vladislav Inozemtsev. At that time, the Moscow […]
Staunton, July 26 – Ilya Frank, a Jewish linguist whose approach has defined how Russians study foreign languages for more than a decade, has decided he and his family must leave Moscow for Israel because of what he describes as “a Nazi-like atmosphere” there, one he quickly identified because of his familiarity with German writings […]
Staunton, November 13 – Vladimir Putin is proposing the kind of grand bargain to Barack Obama that Hitler proposed to Neville Chamberlain and then to Joseph Stalin, in which the West would accept Russia’s annexation of Crimea in exchange for Moscow’s cooperation on Iran, according to Andrey Illarionov. Chamberlain rejected that bargain but Stalin did […]
Staunton, August 11 – Many observers are focusing on the impact Putin’s ban on imports from countries which have imposed sanctions on Russia will have on Russian consumers, but Vladislav Inozemtsev says that it will have more serious consequences for Russian entrepreneurs and their relationship with the Kremlin. Because the sanctions will hit the entrepreneurs’ […]
Staunton, July 29 – The Russian government should reduce the attention it is paying to ethnic Russians and Russian speakers in the former Soviet republics – a group he calls “Russian World-II” – and expand its attention to ethnic Russians and those who feel an attachment to Russia elsewhere, a group he calls “Russian World-I,” […]
Staunton, May 28 – Russians are now far more concerned about defending what they have than in getting something better, Lev Gudkov says. Consequently, if the Kremlin does try to take away something the majority thinks is rightfully theirs, such a step would almost certainly put the survival of the current regime at risk whatever […]
Staunton, May 2 – Moscow is threatening its own country even more than it is threatening Ukraine by presenting those now in revolt against Kyiv as heroes, a portrayal that could lead to an upswing in extremist views and actions in the Russian Federation itself, according to Vladislav Inozemtsev. In an article in Vedomosti just […]
