Archive

July 23, 2009

Russia Reminds Ukraine Who’s the Boss

So Ukraine, you want to invite Joe Biden here, talking this and that about your “territorial integrity” … How about we drive around some mobile missile trucks on the streets of Sevastopol right after he leaves the country, and se...
July 23, 2009

Coke and Pepsi Battle over Russia’s Shrinking Market

When Obama made his first presidential visit to Russia a few weeks back, the executives from Pepsi hopped along for the ride and took advantage to ink a $1 billion investment in Russia – a direct answer to a similar push from Coca-Cola to fl...
July 23, 2009

Eastern Europe a Complicated Dilemma for Washington

Writing in the Globe and Mail on the recent open letter from Havel and co., John O’Sullivan of the conservative Hudson Institute points out that it is pretty hard for the Obama administration to improve relations with Russia without sufferin...
July 23, 2009

Video: Voting (Again) in Moldova

Poor, poor Moldova.  It is really hard to see any exit from their political crisis in the near future.  Especially with Russia allegedly surreptitiously providing the police with nice, solid truncheons and other riot gear for the festivi...
July 23, 2009

Leaving the Caucasus, a Taboo Subject

Our friend Kerkko Paananen at the Finnish-Russian Civic Forum posts a translation of an article by Igor Averkiev which argues that Russia would be stronger, more secure, and better off if it pulled out of the Caucasus.  Averkiev wrote the art...
July 23, 2009

Obama and Surkov

We didn’t bother making a big deal out of Liz Cheney’s Wall Street Journal article from a few weeks back, which excoriated President Barack Obama for his speech in Moscow, arguing that he seemed a little too nice to the Russians and pr...
July 23, 2009

Spy Game Regrets

The BBC has got an interesting bit here on the memoir former British intelligence agent Anthony Blunt, who shared confidential information with the Soviet Union’s Comintern during and after WWII.  Blunt’s regrets and opinions on w...
July 23, 2009

Energy Blast – July 23, 2009

Russia has approved a $4.1 billion atomic energy plan.  Medvedev has announced that the Security Council will discuss a series of projects on the use of supercomputers to analyze the efficiency of the country’s nuclear deterrent.  ...
July 23, 2009

Today in Russian Business – July 23, 2009

A Chinese delegation has arrived in Moscow to discuss the closure of Cherkizovsky Market where 60,000 Chinese traders worked.  Putin has told Sberbank to continue lending, saying, ‘a significant part of the (branch) network is not profi...
July 23, 2009

RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – July 23, 2009

TODAY: Biden in Georgia expresses support for freedom and territorial integrity; Russia-NATO Council meeting pragmatic.  Body of missing Russian activist  Andrei Kulagin found, second murder in a week.  Nobel laureates plead for jus...