Tatarstan Hangs Tough on Presidency
Paul Goble Staunton, December 24 – The State Council of Tatarstan yesterday adjourned for the year without changing the title of the republic’s top official from president to head, and...
View ArticleOne Russian Ecologist Released from Prison, a Second Still Inside, and a...
Paul Goble Staunton, December 24 – Following an international campaign, the Russian courts have released from prison camp Yevgeny Vitishko who was serving a three-year sentence for his...
View ArticleA Baker’s Dozen of Neglected Russian Stories – No. 16
Paul GobleStaunton, December 25 -- The flood of news stories from a country as large, diverse and strange as the Russian Federation often appears to be is far too large for anyone to keep up with. But...
View ArticlePutin Views Russia Itself Only as a Means to Create a New World Order,...
Paul Goble Staunton, December 25 – Vladimir Putin views Russia not as an end in itself but rather as a means to create a new world order, a view that means he is quite prepared to sacrifice...
View ArticleThanks to Putin, Chechnya in ‘Final Stage of Establishing Independence,’...
Paul Goble Staunton, December 25 – Vladimir Putin rose to power with a promise to suppress Chechnya’s drive for independence, but his actions in recent years, including his new decision to...
View Article100 Million Fewer People Speak Russian Now than Did 25 Years Ago
Paul Goble Staunton, December 26 – The number of people who speak Russian has declined by 100 million since 1989 or 27 percent, according to Leonid Slutsky, the chairman of the Duma...
View ArticleTop Ten Fakes of Russian Propaganda about Ukraine in 2015
Paul Goble Staunton, December 26 – With nearly a week left in 2015, it may be too soon to close the book on Moscow’s lies about Ukraine for this year; but Kyiv blogger Aleksey Minakov has...
View Article‘Traditional Islam Does Not Exist,’ Chechen Official Says
Paul Goble Staunton, December 26 – Experts and officials in both Russia and the West routinely contrast in the Russian Federation what they call “the extremists” and “traditional Islam,” but...
View ArticleKremlin’s Censorship of Shenderovich Interview Backfiring
Paul Goble Staunton, December 26 – The decision of the Russian authorities to take down an interview Russian commentator Viktor Shenderovich gave on Ekho Moskvy on Thursday is already...
View ArticleChaplin, Ousted, Threatens Both Kirill and the Kremlin
Paul Goble Staunton, December 26 – Vsevolod Chaplin, the longtime protégé of Patriarch Kirill who was fired two days ago from his post as head of the synod’s department for relations with...
View ArticleDonbas on Its Way to Becoming Second Chechnya, Babchenko Says
Paul Goble Staunton, December 27 – However much some in Russia, the West, or even in Ukraine may hope that the Donbas will become “a frozen conflict,” that is not going to happen, according...
View ArticleBorder Residents, Migrants, and Those with Guns Social Basis of Islamist...
Paul Goble Staunton, December 27 – Those who live in ethnically contested border regions, those who have gone to Russia as gastarbeiters and returned, and those who have experience with the...
View ArticlePutin’s Man in Moscow Patriarchate Calls for Soviet-Style Censorship
Paul Goble Staunton, December 27 – Turbulence at the top of the Russian Orthodox Church makes the views of the hierarch deemed closest to Vladimir Putin and thus a possible successor to...
View ArticleStalin-Era Sacralization of State Why Russians Overwhelmingly Back Putin,...
Paul Goble Staunton, December 27 – The Soviet substitution in the 1930s of the state as the idol of the crowd for religious faith not only has led to the rise of a kind of mass neo-paganism...
View ArticleRussia May Be Close to a Revolution But Not the One Opposition Hopes For,...
Paul Goble Staunton, December 28 – Given the increasing pessimism among Russians because of declines in their standard of living, Russia may be approaching a revolutionary situation,...
View ArticleFailure of Tatarstan and Sakha to Obey Moscow on Turkey Ties Seen Threatening...
Paul Goble Staunton, December 28 – In both a transparent act of intimidation and a reflection of the fragility of the Russian Federation, Elena Meygun of the Nazaccent.ru portal says that...
View ArticlePetrozavodsk Mayor’s Firing May Backfire on Republic Head and United Russia,...
Paul Goble Staunton, December 28 – The vote last week by the city council of Petrozavodsk to fire Galina Shirshina as mayor could be reversed by the courts because the independent mayor...
View ArticleWhen It Comes to the Economy, Putin Increasingly Behaving Like a Shaman,...
Paul Goble Staunton, December 28 – As the Russian economy continues to deteriorate, Vladimir Putin and his entourage are increasingly behaving like shamans, acting as if their incantations...
View ArticleBelarus Today is What Russia May Be Tomorrow But Ukraine is What It Could Be...
Paul Goble Staunton, December 28 – There is a widespread notion that Russia “tomorrow” will be like Belarus’ “today,” Pavel Kazarin says. “That is completely possible but even if it is,...
View ArticleSub-National Groups in Post-Soviet States Ever More Important and...
Paul Goble Staunton, December 29 – In Soviet times, Russian and Western scholars routinely talked about the competition among supra-national identities like the Soviet people, ethnic...
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