Month: May 2009

May 6, 2009

Avoiding Confrontation

First Russia extended their troops to the borders of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, then there was a rebellion of a tank battalion, followed by the expulsion of two Canadian diplomats working for NATO.  Kind of like a tit-for-tat and tat in resp...
May 6, 2009

Resetting Impunity

A few days ago we posted some comments and video from American observers on U.S.-Russian relations, which included some exchange of views on realism and the whole “reset button” approach to the Kremlin currently being offered by the Ob...
May 6, 2009

Energy Blast – May 6, 2009

‘The European Union is finally getting serious about ensuring the diversity of its energy supplies’: RFERL reports on the upcoming southern corridor energy summit.  The Other Russia analyzes Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin’...
May 6, 2009

Today in Russian Business – May 6, 2009

‘We should admit, in all honesty, that direct government support of the stock market achieved nothing‘, President Medvedev has said in a meeting with politicians from A Just Russia, but Putin’s unified property tax is worth consi...
May 6, 2009

RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – May 6, 2009

TODAY: Georgia accuses Russian secret services of fomenting military plot; Kremlin retaliates to NATO spy row with expulsion of Canadian diplomats; Russia extends pork ban to Britain; gay pride march to take place in tandem with Eurovision Georgia...
May 5, 2009

A Challenged Diarchy

Igor Torbakov from the Finnish Institute of International Affairs in Helsinki has an opinion piece on the Russian tandemocracy of Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev posted over at EurasiaNet, examining how this political structure may be insuffici...
May 5, 2009

The West is Failing Ukraine

Former Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski writes in the Wall Street Journal, calling on Europe to renew its promises of 1989. Despite these achievements, the process of making Europe “whole and free” is incomplete — and will...
May 5, 2009

Mutiny in Georgia

It seems that if Russia wanted to do something dramatic about Georgia, now would be the perfect time, given that Barack Obama’s options may be more constrained now than in the future and Mikheil Saakashvili is on political death watch. ...
May 5, 2009

365 Days of Medvedev

Fraser Cameron of the E.U.-Russia Centre provides his appraisal of Dmitry Medvedev’s first year as President of the Russian Federation. Another survey, by the E.U.-Russia Center, shows that most Russians consider the top three issues facing ...
May 5, 2009

Energy Blast – May 5, 2009

Crude oil inventories are ‘bursting at the seams’ as record amounts of unused oil are being put in storage around the world, threatening to flood the market; Goldman Sachs has predicted that storage capacity may be full by June.  ...