Year: 2008

August 13, 2008

Putin’s Judo Lesson for Georgia

Ah, journalists! I love you guys, but you just can’t resist a good Olympic competition story between two nations at war. Certainly the cameras loved the symbolic hug between Russia’s Natalia Paderina and Georgia’s Nino Salukvadze...
August 13, 2008

Jenkins: First Yukos, Then Georgia

I think that this column by Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. in the Wall Street Journal, if not well intentioned, does a lot of projecting and stretching, including a number of favorite ideological issues attached to unrelated events. His central argument, ...
August 13, 2008

A Thuggish Quality

Steven Pearlstein has a good column in the Washington Post today explaining what is becoming well known as Russia’s energy play with this war in the Caucasus. I’d agree with some of the other analysts who argue this isn’t the onl...
August 13, 2008

Natural Gas and Opposition to Georgian Sovereignty

We’ve blogged quite a bit about the various Kremlin owned and operated politicians in Europe, and often speculated whether or not there is quantitative coefficient of how much natural gas a given country consumes related to their level of ac...
August 13, 2008

War Continues Unabated in Gori, Headed for Tbilisi

Despite Medvedev’s orders for a ceasefire, reports this afternoon from journalists in Gori indicate that about 50 Russian tanks and armored vehicles have re-entered the Georgian city with South Ossetian militias looting stores and homes, whi...
August 13, 2008

Kill the Chicken to Scare the Monkey

This bit of analysis comes from Ariel Cohen in the Washington Times, who wonders when Europe and the United States will get around to questioning Russia’s claim to be an upholder of international law. Unfortunately, Iraq and Kosovo are going...
August 13, 2008

Energy Blast – Aug 13, 2008

BP says its 90,000-barrels-per-day pipeline, which runs to Supsa on Georgia’s Black Sea coast from Baku in Azerbaijan, has been closed indefinitely as a precautionary measure. The Washington Post says that, precisely, “was one of the aims of...
August 13, 2008

Today in Russian Business – Aug 13, 2008

Russia’s stock market is “the world’s worst performer this quarter” and Georgia is to suffer “lasting economic damage”. Private equity firm Carlyle Group has sold US steelmaker John Maneely Co. to Russia’s Novolipetsk Steel for $3.5 billion....
August 13, 2008

RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – Aug 13, 2008

TODAY: Six-step peace process agreed on; Medvedev calls day of mourning; Russian tanks fill Gori; the PR war continues; Moscow’s Zimbabwe stance “hypocrisy”; British Foreign Secretary weighs in; Russia claims South Ossetia war crimes, Georgia file...