A New and Most Dangerous Game in the Russian Federation – Border Changes from...
Paul Goble Staunton, February 5 – Moscow has changed the borders of its constituent oblasts, krays and republics many times over the last century, and Vladimir Putin for the last decade has...
View ArticlePutin Making Life in Crimea Even Worse than in Soviet Times, Cemilev Says
Paul Goble Staunton, February 5 – Mustafa Cemilev, the longtime leader of the Crimean Tatar national movement, says that since Putin’s Anschluss “a Soviet regime has returned to the...
View ArticleUnlike Mussolini, Putin Can’t Make the Trains Run on Time – and Russians are...
Paul Goble Staunton, February 5 – Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, it was said, might have failed at everything else, but at least he kept the trains running on time. Now, it...
View ArticleAny Russian Region Could, With Outside Help, Become a Donbas, Kazarin Says
Paul Goble Staunton, February 6 – Like many countries, the Russian Federation suffers from many regional and ethnic tensions, any one of which could become a Donbas if an outside power...
View ArticleIf West Allows Russia a Role in Donbas, Moscow Will Destabilize Ukraine for...
Paul Goble Staunton, February 6 – In their rush to end the fighting in southeastern Ukraine, Western governments are in danger of creating a far larger and long-lasting problem for the...
View ArticleAnother Defeat for Putin’s ‘Russian World’ – Very Few Russians in Estonia...
Paul Goble Staunton, February 6 – Over the last two year period for which statistics are available, only 37 ethnic Russians moved from Estonia to the Russian Federation despite Moscow’s...
View ArticleA Sect Called ‘USSR’ Spreads But Doesn’t Want Soviet Union Back
Paul Goble Staunton, February 6 – Russians have always been inclined to and fearful of religious sectarians seeing them as a threat to their faith and their country, but seldom have they...
View ArticleWhere Russian Bosses Stole a Railroad and Sold Off the Rails and Ties to...
Paul Goble Staunton, February 6 – Some are giving credit to Vladimir Putin for issuing an order to restore electric train service in Russia’s regions, but others are pointing out that what...
View ArticleA Munich in Moscow
Paul Goble Staunton, February 7 – The meeting of Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande with Vladimir Putin in Moscow to discuss Ukraine without the presence of Ukrainian leaders has led many...
View ArticleThree Disturbing Developments in Russia
Paul Goble Staunton, February 7 – At a time when each day brings fresh evidence that Russia is headed in a very dangerous direction and many news items that leave one shaking one’s head or...
View ArticleMoscow Patriarchate Said Opening the Way for Kadyrov to Succeed Putin and...
Paul Goble Staunton, February 7 – Nikolay Podosokorsky says that the Moscow Patriarchate’s support for the right of Muslims to wear the hijab and for Ramzan Kadyrov’s demonstration in...
View Article‘Donetsk Peoples Republic’ Declares Itself Successor to 1918 Bolshevik Statelet
Paul Goble Staunton, February 7 – The so-called Donetsk Peoples Republic has declared itself to be the successor to the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog Soviet Republic which existed nominally within...
View ArticleLatgale Said an Issue More ‘Mole Hill’ than ‘Mountain’
Paul Goble Staunton, February 7 -- The issue of secessionist sentiment in Latgale, the eastern region of Latvia, is more “a mole hill” than “a mountain” largely created by the Russian...
View ArticlePutin’s War in Ukraine has Already Claimed 50,000 Dead, German Intelligence...
Paul Goble Staunton, February 8 – German intelligence services estimate that 50,000 people have died in the war in Ukraine so far, a figure almost ten times larger than that offered by...
View ArticleWar in Ukraine Direct Result of Russia’s Turn to Fascism, Eidman Says
Paul Goble Staunton, February 8 – Many people around the world are not only horrified by the Russian invasion of Ukraine but surprised that such a thing could be happening now. But they...
View Article60,000 of Russia’s 300,000 Journalists Will Be Unemployed by Year’s End,...
Paul Goble Staunton, February 8 – Russia’s economic crisis is hitting many groups hard but few harder than those working in the media, and according to official data, 60,000 or even more of...
View ArticleChina Ready to Invest in North Caucasus
Paul Goble Staunton, February 8 – A Chinese business delegation visiting Ingushetia told Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, the head of that North Caucasus republic, that Chinese firms are “interested” in...
View ArticleMuslims Want a City Where They Form the Majority Shifted from Russian Region...
Paul Goble Staunton, February 8 – The residents of the city of Vyatskiye Polyany, a city of 33,000 in Kirov Oblast, have petitioned the region’s legislative assembly to allow them to...
View ArticleTuvan Activist Says Non-Russian Republics Must Block Moscow from Sending...
Paul Goble Staunton, February 9 -- Sayana Mongush, a prominent Tuvan activist who earlier served in that republic’s parliament, says that the governments...
View ArticleUkrainian Scenario in Baltic Countries ‘Impossible,’ Former Kremlin Advisor Says
Paul Goble Staunton, February 9 – Aleksandr Sytin, a former researcher at the Russian Institute of Strategic Studies (RISI), a think tank which was set up by Russia’s Foreign Intelligence...
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