‘Moscow Not Prepared to Offer Russian Regions What It Demands Kyiv Give...
Paul Goble Staunton, May 22 -- “Moscow is not prepared to offer [Russia’s] regions freedom analogous to that which it is demanding for [Ukraine’s] Donbas,” despite the fact that Russia is...
View ArticleRussia Now in ‘a State of War for Survival with the US,’ Russia Today...
Paul Goble Staunton, May 22 – Rostislav Ishchenko, a commentator for Russia Today who gained notoriety for arguing that Moscow should “preventively occupy” the Baltic countries, says that...
View ArticleDisaster Brewing on Afghan-Turkmen Border Seen Hitting All of Central Asia
Paul Goble Staunton, May 23 – More than 900 ethnic Turkmen families, perhaps has many as 5,000 people, are caught between Taliban forces and Turkmenistan whose government is refusing to...
View ArticleWest Caving on Crimea But Kyiv Can Ultimately Get It Back, Piontkovsky Says
Paul Goble Staunton, May 23 – The West appears to have accepted the deal Vladimir Putin has been offering the last month, agreeing not to challenge Russia’s annexation of Crimea de facto in...
View ArticleThe EU Eastern Partnership has Failed as a ‘Buffer Zone,’ Portnikov Says
Paul Goble Staunton, May 23 – The EU’s Eastern Partnership program has proven incapable of being a buffer zone between Europe and Russia and must be radically reformed or scrapped...
View ArticleNarva is Not Next, Kasekamp Says
Paul Goble Staunton, May 24 – Since Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and its continuing subversion of other parts of Ukraine, many have asked whether one or another of the Baltic countries...
View ArticleWhich of Many Russian Languages Defines Putin’s Russia World?
Paul Goble Staunton, May 24 – Vladimir Putin insists that the unity of the Russian nation and the basis of what he calls “the Russian world” depends on the Russian language, but there are...
View ArticleMoscow Can’t Maintain Current Levels of Military Spending for Much Longer,...
Paul Goble Staunton, May 24 – The Russian government cannot afford to maintain its current levels of military spending for long because its shift of resources to the military sector is...
View ArticleThe Kremlin’s Top 5 ‘Propaganda Myths, Fakes and Stupidities of the Week’
Paul Goble Staunton, May 25 – Dmitry Bukovsky of Kyiv’s “Delovaya stolitsa” continues his series, “The Top 5 Propaganda Myths, Fakes and Stupidities of the Kremlin for the Week.” And this...
View ArticlePutinism is What the White Russians Might Have Implemented Had They Won,...
Paul Goble Staunton, May 25 – Given the recrudescence of Soviet institutions in the Russian-occupied Crimea and Donbas, ever more people are playing the game of “what if” – “what if” the...
View ArticleUkrainian Conflict is between ‘Heirs of Kievan Rus’ and ‘Heirs of Golden...
Paul Goble Staunton, May 25 – “The Ukrainian-Russian conflict is to a significant degree a conflict between the heirs of Kievan Rus [Ukraine] and the heirs of the Golden Horde” [Moscow],...
View Article‘In the Donbas, There is a War, But in Crimea, There is Terror,’ Residents Say
Paul Goble Staunton, May 26 – Many believe that the situation in Russian-occupied Crimea is “not so terrible” because there is no war going on there, Abmezhit Suleymanov says. But in many...
View ArticleRepression in Russia Intensifying Outside of Moscow
Paul Goble Staunton, May 26 – As it has done so often, the Russian government is increasing repression outside the capital and thus outside the field of view of Western journalists and...
View ArticlePutin’s Party Suffers Big Loss in Small Kaliningrad City
Paul Goble Staunton, May 26 – Vladimir Putin’s party of power, United Russia, failed to win a single seat in elections to the 15-member city council of Baltiysk in Kaliningrad, an...
View ArticleA Warning to Putin: Authoritarian Regimes Last Only if They are Rational
Paul Goble Staunton, May 27 – “All successful authoritarian regimes,” that is those who are able to ensure political stability, growth and economic and social modernization, “are rational...
View ArticleBy Declaring Itself Part of ISIS, Caucasus Emirate May Lose Support,...
Paul Goble Staunton, May 27 – The leaders of the Caucasus Emirate have declared themselves part of ISIS, but such declarations, given that many Salafis in the North Caucasus view the latter...
View ArticlePutin Faces New Kind of Parade of Sovereignties in Degraded Russian Regions
Paul Goble Staunton, May 27 – Russian governors, “even the most loyal” to the Kremlin, as a result of the intensification of the economic crisis, find themselves between a rock and a hard...
View ArticleEthnic Russians Now a Minority in Moscow, Consultant to Russian Force...
Paul Goble Staunton, May 31 – Fewer than one in three residents of Moscow consist of ethnic Russians, according to a consultant to one of the Russian force structures cited by AsiaRussia.ru...
View ArticleFIFA Corruption Trials Could Threaten Putin’s Hold on Power, Portnikov Says
Paul Goble Staunton, May 31 – Many commentators have suggested that Vladimir Putin is expressing outrage about the corruption charges the US has brought against FIFA because of his fear...
View ArticleShadow Economy, Rural Self-Sufficiency Allowing Russia to Weather Sanctions,...
Paul Goble Staunton, May 31 – Russia’s shadow economy and the self-sufficiency of Russians living outside of the major cities of the country “have allowed Russia to survive the crisis and...
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