Archive

November 5, 2008

Nagorno-Karabakh and Russia’s Legitimacy Deficit

Back in mid-October, Samuel Charap and Andrew Kuchins published a thoughtful op/ed piece in the International Herald Tribune entitled “Russia’s Peace Offensive,” which argued that there were signs that Dmitry Medvedev was strivin...
November 5, 2008

Two Deaths on National Unity Day

The AP is reporting that amongst the arrests and scuffles with police of Russian ultra-nationalists marching on National Unity Day, two Central Asia men were killed and another two were injured in hate-related assaults. A staffer from the the emba...
November 5, 2008

Counterfeit Constitutionalism Paves the Way for Putin Return

Is President Dmitry Medvedev paving the way for some constitutional changes to bring Vladimir Putin back into the presidency? Furthermore, after this one little constitutional edit, why not some more? From the Financial Times: But he dropped a bom...
November 5, 2008

Kasparov on Obama

This one from Garry Kasparov comes from The Other Russia: The window of opportunity for Obama to take advantage of the world’s curiosity and goodwill will be small. The crises we face are too big; the next US president will not enjoy much of a gra...
November 5, 2008

Russia’s Testing of Obama Begins

[The following analysis arrived today in my mailbox from a frequent reader, well known to us for his acerbic wit. As usual, he wishes to remain anonymous, but it seemed that this one was worth sharing. – Editor] In his “state of the fe...
November 5, 2008

Putin Won’t Be Eager to Please Obama

Adrian Blomfield of the Telegraph observes that Barack Obama will step into the White House facing drastically different circumstances than George W. Bush did in 2000 to kick off the next phase of the U.S.-Russia relationship, and that Moscow is l...
November 5, 2008

Germany’s Social Democrats Bigger Losers than McCain

Today I have been running in and out of meetings in Brussels all day, so I’ll have to make these blog posts quick and off-the-cuff. In discussing the election of Barack Obama with some colleagues here, it again occurred to me that many Europ...
November 5, 2008

Medvedev Congratulates then Threatens Obama

We’ll have more commentary coming soon on this, but it appears that President Dmitry Medvedev has greeted the historic election of Barack Obama with a telegram of congratulations (“I expect to develop a constructive dialogue with you o...
November 5, 2008

Energy Blast – Nov 5, 2008

The declaration on the Nagorno-Karabakh, generally thought to have been signed with the aim of optimizing possibilities for energy politics in the region, ‘does not contain any significant commitments’, says this report. The Kremlin has increased ...
November 5, 2008

Today in Russian Business – Nov 5, 2008

Speculation that Barack Obama’s presidency will boost the country’s relations with the US has helped Russian stocks to rally for their sixth day in a row. Vneshekonombank is to act as an agent for $6.41 billion of National Welfare Fund...