Moscow’s Inability to Fund Planned Investments Sparks Discontent in Central Asia
Paul Goble Staunton, January 2 – Businesses and governments in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are angry at the failure of some Russian firms to pay their bills and at the decision of the Russian...
View ArticleUzbek and Tajik Gastarbeiters in Russia Ever Fewer; Kazakh and Kyrgyz Ones...
Paul Goble Staunton, January 2 – Most Russian assessments of and reaction to Central Asian gastarbeiters treat those coming in from that region as a whole, but in fact there have been...
View ArticleMoscow Said Lagging in Opposing Pan-Turkism inside Russian Federation
Paul Goble Staunton, January 2 – Pan-Turkism has long been a “quite successful” ideological weapon for Ankara, Eurasianist Alem Grekov says; but Russia “has begun to oppose it only now” as a...
View ArticleOusted Moscow Patriarchate Churchman Says Priests and Bishops Should be...
Paul Goble Staunton, January 2 – Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, who was fired from his post as head of the synod’s department for church relations with society, has launched a campaign for the...
View ArticleHolders of Soviet Passports Truly People without a Country
Paul Goble Staunton, January 3 – Because Russian law does not recognize stateless persons as a specific category, those who do not have a Russian Federation, including those who do have a...
View ArticleRussia’s Neighbors Don’t Have to Be Dependent on Russia for Energy,...
Paul Goble Staunton, January 3 – One of the arguments those opposed to the collapse of the USSR frequently offered and one that those who believe that these countries must remain in Moscow’s...
View ArticlePutin's Russia Will Never Enter the 21st Century, Yakovenko Says
Paul Goble Staunton, January 3 – Georgy Satarov suggested that Russia has not yet entered the 21st century and won’t do so in 2016. (See...
View ArticleRussians, Like Ukrainians, Now View Ukraine as Separate Country, Radzikhovsky...
Paul Goble Staunton, January 3 – Perhaps the most important development in the post-Soviet space in 2015 is that most Russians and nearly all Ukrainians view Ukraine as a separate country...
View ArticleKadyrov Threatens to Punish Relatives of Chechens Who Took Part in Protest...
Paul Goble Staunton, January 3 – Chechnya head Ramzan Kadyrov, who earlier announced he would punish and otherwise put pressure on relatives of those who engage in violence, has now extended...
View ArticleMoscow Allies with Shiites Despite the Fact that 90 Percent of Russia’s...
Paul Goble Staunton, January 4 – Moscow’s alliance with Shiite Iran and Shiites in Syria – a move that Aleksandr Dugin says is “a Eurasianist fetwa” – is already generating concerns and even...
View ArticleMoscow Sees Threat from Afghanistan Coming Through Turkmenistan
Paul Goble Staunton, January 4 – Despite Moscow’s dispatch of additional forces to Tajikistan to counter threats from Afghanistan, a senior Russian foreign ministry official says that Afghan...
View ArticlePutin’s ‘International of Lies’ Based on Money, Not Ideas, Yakovenko Says
Paul Goble Staunton, January 4 – The International Vladimir Putin has founded is “unique,” Igor Yakovenko says. It differs from all its predecessors and counterparts in that it is not based...
View ArticlePutin and the Evolving Politics of Prepositions about Ukraine
Paul Goble Staunton, January 4 – The use of “v” versus the use of “na” as a preposition about being “in Ukraine” has become so politicized that many Russians view the use of the first as...
View ArticleIs Kyzyl ‘Ours’? The Ironies of a Virtual Russia Empire with Virtual Enemies
Paul Goble Staunton, January 4 – No one ever says Kyzyl or any other city or region in the Russian Federation is “ours” and deserving of our attention, Dmitry Gudkov says, because the logic...
View Article‘Will Tatarstan Do to the Russian Federation What Ukraine Did to the USSR?’
Paul Goble Staunton, January 5 – Two ethnic Ukrainian commentators, one living in Kazan and the other in Kyiv, argue Tatarstan today is contributing to the disintegration of the Russian...
View ArticleTwo Troubling Questions about Putin: Is He Sick? And Is He Getting Rid of...
Paul Goble Staunton, January 5 – In the dies non that exists in Russia over the winter holidays, two uncomfortable and potentially dangerous questions have been raised about Vladimir Putin:...
View ArticleWith Each Passing Day, Russia Winning Propaganda War in Donbas, Sedova Says
Paul Goble Staunton, January 5 – One of the aspects of Russia’s occupation of portions of Ukraine is that with each passing day, Russian propaganda outlets are operating in many cases...
View ArticleStalinism is ‘Proletarian Slavophilism’ That Seeks Destruction of the West,...
Paul Goble Staunton, January 5 – Stalinism, Yevgeny Ikhlov argues, is “proletarian Slavophilism,” which remains popular because it like the earlier Slavophiles identifies as the Israel of...
View ArticleOnly Three Groups of Russian Regions Likely to Do Relatively Well in 2016,...
Paul Goble Staunton, January 5 – The absence of property rights, the excessive involvement of the state in the economy, ineffective investments and massive corruption would all have to be...
View ArticlePatriarch Kirill Names Lay Expert Who has Equated Liberalism and Nazism to...
Paul Goble Staunton, January 6 – Moscow Patriarch Kirill has given Russian Christians on this holy day a clear indication of his intentions for the future: he has appointed Aleksandr...
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