Staunton, September 4 – The sharpening clash between Russia and the West is not a new cold war because it does not have the ideological content that the earlier conflict did, Viktor Krasilshchikov says, but that does not mean that it is simply a contest between the national interests of the countries involved. Instead, the […]
Staunton, September 4 – Many Soviet and Western analysts treated the Soviet space as something which was more unified than in fact was the case and thus failed to predict that it would disintegrate as it did. And even now, many of them assume that “a common post-Soviet space” exists, but that is not the […]
Staunton, August 27 – After 20 years of assuming that Russia wanted to join the rest of the world and play by the rules (an assumption that was not without its own problems) many in the West now are governed by the opposite assumption: that Russia is capable of anything and therefore must be opposed, according […]
Staunton, July 22 – Provoking a further deterioration in relations with the West will have “catastrophic” consequences “not for those who take these decisions but for the Russian economy” because Russia is far too dependent on the West to act as independent superpower, according to Vladislav Inozemtsev. In an article posted online July 22 in […]
Staunton, June 9 – Alfred Kokh, a former Kremlin aide and advisor, says that by choosing to ally with China, Vladimir Putin is bringing closer the day of Russia’s funeral because the country lacks the resources to go its own way and will be forced to play by the rules however onerous of its more […]
Staunton, May 24 – Igor Eidman, who has argued that Putin’s Russia represents the coming together of the worst features of the Soviet past and Western capitalism, says that this “negative convergence” involves far more than economics. In a post on Kasparov.ru yesterday, the Moscow analyst argues that almost wherever one looks in Putin’s Russia, […]
Staunton, May 18 – Sergey Baburin, a prominent leader of the Russian right, suggests that right-wing political parties in Europe now form a veritable fifth column for Russia on the continent which can be counted on to support Moscow against their leftist governments and against NATO and American policies as well. In an interview entitled […]
Staunton, May 12 – Vladimir Putin’s system represents a combination of “all the worst features of capitalism and socialism,” a fusion that represents “’negative convergence’ and one that has created “a monster,” according to Igor Eidman, a Russian sociologist and commentator who now lives in Germany. In an essay on Kasparov.ru today, Eidman notes that […]
Staunton, April 7 The West has not responded to Russian aggression in Ukraine because the West has lived without an enemy for some years and thus fears having an enemy even when Russia or another country acts like one, according to the French historian Alan Besançon. In an interview with a Polish weekly on Friday, […]
Staunton, April 5 – Given the nature of Vladimir Putin’s regime and reflecting the Kremlin leader’s own understanding, “Russians do not exist,” émigré writer Boris Shumyatsky says. Instead, “people from the former Soviet Union are united [by] their experience of life under a dictatorship.” In a comment to Die Zeit this week, the writer argues […]
