Nearly Half of All Russians Now Say They Can Live without Relying on the...
Paul Goble Staunton, April 27 – Given everything that has occurred in Russia over the past five years, few have noticed what can only be described as “a quiet revolution”: the percentage of...
View ArticleMoscow Tries to Divide and Weaken Europe but Its Actions Unite and Expand It,...
Paul Goble Staunton, April 27 – Despite all of Vladimir Putin’s efforts to divide and weaken Europe, no one has done more to “strengthen European unity” and prompt all but a handful of...
View ArticleChernobyl Destroyed the Soviet Union
Paul Goble Staunton, April 27 – Thirty years ago this week, the Chernobyl power plant accident set in train the forces that destroyed the Soviet Union and that are still driving it apart....
View ArticleCan Russia, However Much Sub-Divided, Ever Escape Its Past? Krasheninnikov Asks
Paul Goble Staunton, April 27 – When the Soviet Union disintegrated, those who came to power in most of the successor states were members of the second or third-tier of the Soviet elite; and...
View ArticleAre Some of Russia’s Federal Subjects on the Road to Self-Liquidation?
Paul Goble Staunton, April 28 – Valentina Matvienko has pulled back her suggestions about regional amalgamation in the face of widespread opposition...
View ArticleBowing to China, Moscow for First Time Ever to Build Railroad with...
Paul Goble Staunton, April 24 – Since tsarist times, Russian governments have laid railroad tracks 1520 millimeters apart and not the 1485 mm that is the standard gage almost everywhere...
View Article4500 ISIS Militants Now in Central Asia, Russia’s GRU Says
Paul Goble Staunton, April 28 – General Sergey Afanasyev, deputy chief of the GRU, the Russian military’s intelligence service, says that approximately 4500 people in Central Asia have sworn...
View ArticleTajikistan Bans Russian Name Endings
Paul Goble Staunton, April 29 – In yet another move away from Soviet and Russian patterns, the Tajikistan authorities have officially prohibited the use of Russian-style names (those ending...
View ArticlePotemkin Villages Assume New Content in Age of Putin
Paul Goble Staunton, April 29 – At least since Prince Grigory Potemkin came up with the idea of a portal and beautiful village that could be moved in advance of the travels of his tsarina,...
View ArticleIn Effort to Limit Radical Islam, Russian Prisons Try but Fail to Spark...
Paul Goble Staunton, April 29 – Russian jailors have tried to provoke inter-ethnic conflicts among Central Asians and Caucasians in order to limit the spread of radical Islam in the Russian...
View ArticlePredominantly Russian Regions Split on Amalgamation, With Many Very Much Opposed
Paul Goble Staunton, April 29 – That the non-Russian republics of the Russian Federation are opposed to amalgamating federal subjects is no news: most of them have viewed this as a threat to...
View ArticleA Baker’s Dozen of Neglected Russian Stories – No. 29
Paul Goble Staunton, April 29 -- 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...
View ArticleWhy Do Many Westerners Show Such Sympathy to Russia and Communism – But Not...
Paul Goble Staunton, April 30 – Those who study the post-Soviet world and especially its non-Russian parts are often struck by the fact that many who do so show an understanding or even...
View ArticleMoscow’s Failure to React to Tajikistan’s De-Russification Said Reflection of...
Paul Goble Staunton, April 30 – Neither Russian officials in Moscow nor the Russian embassy in Dushanbe have reacted to the latest efforts by Tajikistan to de-Russianize that country,...
View ArticleRussia’s ‘Christian Culture’ Precludes Business as Usual with West, Lavrov Says
Paul Goble Staunton, April 30 – Having threatened Stockholm with unspecified military responses if Sweden joins NATO, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says in an interview with “Dagens...
View ArticleEaster Becomes Latest Official Excuse to Limit Freedom of Assembly in Russia
Paul Goble Staunton, April 30 – As Sofya Mokhova points out in a Rosbalt commentary, Russian officials have come up with a variety of excuses to deny Russians their constitutional right to...
View ArticleMoscow Should Restrict US-Funded Russian Groups More than Those Backed by...
Paul Goble Staunton, May 1 – Not only should Moscow broaden the definition of prohibited political activity by NGOs but it should treat them differently depending on the country from which...
View ArticleChernobyl-Hit Regions in Russian Federation Get Little Attention and Ever...
Paul Goble Staunton, May 1 – Most people in Russia and the West link the Chernobyl tragedy to Belarus and Ukraine, the two republics hardest-hit by the 1986 nuclear disaster, forgetting that...
View ArticleAdministrative-Territorial Changes at Lower Levels Also Create Serious...
Paul Goble Staunton, May 1 – Valentina Matviyenko’s proposal to amalgamate federal subjects has sparked new interest in the possibility of border changes and debate about its implications on...
View ArticleMore than Six Times as Many Muscovites Attended Easter Services Today than...
Paul Goble Staunton, May 1 – According to preliminary statistics, 660,000 Muscovites attended Easter services at one of the churches of the Russian capital today while only about 100,000...
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