Russia

January 8, 2009

Putin PR

Many journalists, like Mary Dejevsky in The Independent, are calling for spectators to take a balanced view of the Ukraine-Russia gas dispute and insisting that Ukraine is as much to blame for Europe’s crisis as any other party.  But to...
January 8, 2009

RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – Jan 8th, 2009

TODAY: Russia in talks with Ukraine and EU to attempt to solve the gas crisis; Bulgaria and others in state of emergency; Orthodox Christmas.The EU, Russia and Ukraine are holding talks today, following preliminary negotiations last night, to try ...
January 8, 2009

Le Monde Profiles Robert Amsterdam

The French daily newspaper Le Monde has published a profile of Robert Amsterdam.  The original article can be viewed online here – below is an English translation. Le Monde, Portrait, January 8, 2009 Robert Amsterdam, Lawyer without bar...
January 8, 2009

Welcome to the Deathstar

From Llewellyn King: No building in Moscow says “Soviet Union” so much as the headquarters of Gazprom, the Russian gas monopoly. It is more foreboding than the Lubyanka, the former headquarters and torture emporium of the KGB. The roma...
January 8, 2009

The Moral Justification of Bloodshed

I don’t often link over to the mainstream blogs, but we do regularly read what may be a surprising diversity of them.  This one comes from Matthew Yglesias (on the situation in Gaza) which I thought was insightful. For my part, I think ...
January 8, 2009

Can the Opposition Tap into Class Tensions?

Yesterday Michael Idov had a piece in the New Republic warning readers not to misunderstand the automobile tariff protest uprisings in Russia as any kind of real political movement – yet.  Outraged citizens who took to the streets over ...
January 8, 2009

Grigory Pasko: Russia’s War Conscience

The strategy of the national security of Russia to the year 2020 will be confirmed at a session of the Security Council of Russia on 20 February of the year 2009. Certain details of this document were published, as if by chance, in the local media...
January 7, 2009

The 24-Hour Question

Time is running out…but for who?  The EU Presidency, currently residing with Mirek Topolanek, the Czech prime minister, has just issued Russia with a 24-hour deadline to restore gas supplies to the EU via Ukraine’s pipelines, but ...
January 7, 2009

Investing for Oligarchs

Powerful Russians seem to have a reputation for vindictive behaviour.  Whether deserved or not, it seems to be the root of this curious rumour regarding an Austrian investor. Sonja Kohn disappeared from public view after it has emerged that h...
January 7, 2009

RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – Jan 7th, 2009

TODAY: Gas row dominates the press as Gazprom cuts off all supplies to Ukraine.Gazprom has confirmed that it shut off of all gas deliveries through Ukrainian territory – about 80% of all Russian gas – early this morning, sparking outra...