Russia & Eurasia

July 7, 2015

Why Armenia is Rebelling against Putin

While the world’s attention is on Greece this week, a very interesting development is taking place in the usually sleeping capital of Armenia, as citizens are taking to the streets to protest against rising electricity prices brought about b...
June 22, 2015

US-Russia Relations: ‘It’s Not Me, It’s You’

For very obvious reasons, relations aren’t so great between the United States and Russia lately. But what’s interesting is that both sides prefer to blame the other side for causing the deterioration in relations, while keeping a door ...
June 22, 2015

Russia Will Not Save Greece

Here we are again. As I write this, Eurozone Finance Ministers are meeting with their Greek counterparts to attempt to hash out an agreement for an extension on their next loan repayment in order to keep the banks open and narrowly avoid default. ...
June 21, 2015

How Much Does Russia’s Troll Army Cost?

The New York Times Magazine has published a translation of an interesting blog post by Anton Nossik, responding to Adrian Chen’s amazing in-depth investigation into one of the Russian government’s most ambitious Internet troll operatio...
June 21, 2015

Edward Snowden and the Strategy of Tension

It has been a little more than two years since the whistleblower Edward Snowden’s first leaks of classified National Security Agency (NSA) documents revealing unchecked mass surveillance practices by the U.S. government, and it is safe to sa...
March 13, 2015

Russian Logic on Putin’s Health

Here’s a good one making the rounds on social media: – Putin can’t die? – Why? – Because he doesn’t benefit. An explanation for everything… – Путин не может умереть. - Почему? - Это ему не вы...
March 1, 2015

Yes, Blame Putin for Nemtsov’s Murder

In the days following the brazen murder of opposition figure Boris Nemtsov directly in front of the Kremlin, Russia watchers have been agog with rumours, theories, and warnings of the darkness to come. But in as frequently as we have come to use t...
January 21, 2015

How Europe Still Doesn’t Understand Russia’s Identity

Like many readers of this blog, I’ve been following closely the embarrassing fallout which took place following the publishing of Federica Mogherini’s issues paper on EU relations with Russia, which, to put it lightly, was a frightenin...