Archive

June 15, 2009

Talk vs. Action: Russia’s Currency Dilemma Continues

I’m a few days behind on this as I’ve been busy with other parts of this website, but there have been a number of developments since my post last week regarding how Russia discusses its currency maneuvers. The specific language used he...
June 14, 2009

One Consultancy’s Outlook for Oil and Mining in Russia

London-based Exclusive Analysis offers their insights to Reuters on the immediate outlook for the oil and mining sectors in Russia. Among the highlights: Rosneft and Transneft are likely to have the most trouble meeting their debt obligations, tho...
June 13, 2009

The Rhetorical Thaw

Roger E. Kanet of the University of Miami has published a new 30-page paper on U.S.-Russian relations entitled “From Cooperation to Confrontation: Russia and the United States since 9/11.”  He’s assembled quite a laundry lis...
June 13, 2009

Andrei Piontkovsky and Realism

Per Bob’s earlier post on the growing divide in Russia policy circles over what the Obama Administration can expect from today’s Kremlin, here Russian political analyst Andrei Piontkovsky (survivor of an extremism trial) answers some o...
June 13, 2009

A Question of Linkage

According to this piece in TIME, Russia may be on the cusp of changing its policy toward Iran and cooperating with the United States on strengthening sanctions – but maybe not.  Although the warmer diplomacy from the Obama administratio...
June 12, 2009

The Disaggregation of Washington

The clock is ticking down to the much awaited first visit of President Barack Obama to Moscow on July 6-8, and the once high expectations of “reset diplomacy” are undergoing a sharp re-negotiation among the policy circles of Washington...
June 12, 2009

Gazprom’s Woes

Some quotes from Italian financial analyst Federico Bordonaro posted on RFE/RL: He notes that Gazprom “benefitted enormously” from the steep rise in oil and natural-gas prices in recent years, and then suffered a “huge blow”...
June 12, 2009

Grigory Pasko: The Situation is Under Control

It appears we Russians have been worried over nothing in Chechnya and the North Caucasus.  According to a report filed on Grani.ru quoting FSB director Alexander Bortnikov (right photo), reports of the rapidly escalating political crisis are ...
June 12, 2009

Video: Natalya Gorbanevskaya on Khodorkovsky

Here the Russian human rights activist Natalya Gorbanevskaya, who comments “I think now no one doubts anymore that Khodorkovsky and Lebedev are clearly prisoners of conscience.”  To turn on the English subtitles, just hit the butt...