A five-year economic agreement in the works between Russia and Iran signals efforts by both countries to protect themselves from global isolation. Of course, it’s mostly about oil.
Author: Emily Liedel
The Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, located on the Moldovan border with Ukraine, has relied on Russia for the past two decades. A perfect example of potential new burdens for Moscow.
It is said that Russian parents start thinking of ways to get male children out of required military service before they are even born. Can Moscow change the system without weakening defense?
MOSCOW — Earlier this week, all of Russia’s ambassadors were called home from their stations abroad to attend an event with members of the Russian Parliament and, of course, President Vladimir Putin. The only ambassador missing at the event was Mikhail Zurabov, ambassador to Ukraine. Apparently, the time he spent in Moscow after being recalled […]
Ukrainian Orthodox Church Metropolitan Volodymyr died on Saturday. The showdown between Kiev and Moscow makes picking his successor more than a religious event.
MOSCOW — The funeral for the two young men was held on June 7 in a church in Kubinka, near Moscow. Aleksander Efremov and Alekei Yurin had gone to Donbas in the midst of the battle over the Donetsk airport in the eastern Ukrainian city. Neither came home alive. It was May 22 when 20-year-old […]
MOSCOW — Upon getting the news that the United States and European Union wouldn’t issue travel visas to certain senior officials as part of the continuing sanctions in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea, no one in Moscow complained out loud. Indeed, several prominent officials publicly declared that they would vacation in Russia, even if […]
Maidan protesters remain in Independence Square, keeping guard despite the election of a new president. When will they leave? The vegetable gardens and henhouses suggest no time soon.
Old battles are renewed in the May 25 vote to be Ukraine’s next president. But the first order of business is to make sure the ballot takes place.
MOSCOW — Russia’s deteriorating relationship with the West could lead to a complete restructuring of Internet policy in the country, Kommersant has learned. The Kremlin is currently holding internal discussions about instituting complex methods for tightening the control over Internet access providers. This means filtering content at all levels of content, forbidding the registration of […]
Before Kiev or Kharviv, Moscow’s new cold war with the West meant would-be American parents were banned from adopting Russian orphans. The effect can only now be tallied.
Categories
The Un-United States of Ukraine
Ukrainian politicians are united on the idea of more regional autonomy, but they seem to draw a red line on the question of federalism. That, they fear, would play right into Moscow’s hands.
Though denied by Putin, there is evidence emerging that investment projects elsewhere in Russia are being held up in order to divert funds to projects in newly annexed Crimea.
MOSCOW — Amidst the showdown over Ukraine, the United States tried in vain to pressure China into joining the international sanctions against Russia. Moscow officials have said that while other countries were trying to tie a noose of sanctions around Russia’s neck, China has unexpectedly turned out to be an “absolutely solid partner.” And yet […]
MOSCOW — The same picture that we saw at the end of 2013 in Kiev has now simply moved to Donetsk, Kharkiv, Luhansk and Mykolaiv. Buildings stormed, barricaded streets, people in masks and flags flying. The differences, at first glance, appear insignificant. Before, there was just one center of the protests — Kiev — whereas […]
The Maidan protests were driven by public disgust with corruption, more than picking sides between the EU and Russia. But ousting Viktor Yanukovych has not ended the dirty business woven into the fabric of Ukrainian life.
MOSCOW — The Kremlin is already busy looking for ways to compensate for the economic hit that could come if sanctions get worse or Western businesses start to shy away from working in Russia. And the direction Moscow is looking is decidely to the east. Actively developing relationships with East Asia was on Moscow’s mind […]
“If you’re standing at the ATM and it is not giving you your money, you don’t care where something is going wrong…”
BERLIN — Over the past week, the term “original inhabitants” has been used repeatedly to characterize Crimean Tatars, who seem to be the only inhabitants of the peninsula who don’t see a home for themselves in Russia. “The original inhabitants since the late Middle Ages were the Tatars,” a serious historian and professor of East […]
KIEV — In a widely viewed video, the head of Ukraine’s National Television channel can be seen being beaten by right-wing members of the Ukrainian Parliament for allowing the ceremony celebrating Crimea’s entrance into the Russian Federation to be broadcast live on television. Television executive Aleksander Panteleimonov was grabbed by his necktie, strangled, hit on […]
MOSCOW — As expected, the West reacted poorly to Russia signing an agreement allowing Crimea to join the Russian Federation. But will their threats of consequences really be felt? “We join Poland and the international community in condemning the continuing assault on Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrety,” said U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, who was […]
Shiran Ebadi, 2003 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, says Iran’s supposed reformist leader Hassan Rouhani has done little to improve human rights. Anyway, he doesn’t have final say.
SIMFEROPOL — Crimea’s economy is built on two main engines: tourism and agriculture. The current unrest and pending secession of Crimea to become part of Russia could dissuade many would-be vacationers from both Ukraine and Western Europe. A serious drop in tourism numbers could translate into a serious hit for the peninsula’s economy, which is […]
A look from inside Russia at the prospect of an Iran-style oil embargo, travel bans and other measures the West could apply to make Moscow pay for their policy in Ukraine.
Siberia provided 76% of Russian exports. And taxes on its mined resources account for over half the federal budget. As tension grows at the Ukraine border, some in Siberia want more control.
Whatever political and ethnic forces are at play, all sides must remember that Crimea’s finances and infrastructure are Ukrainian to the core.
SEVASTOPOL — Tension is running high around the Ukrainian navy base in Sevastopol and around Belbek airport, with several spontaneous demonstrations breaking out. Meanwhile on the outskirts of the nearby city of Simferopol, says Vladislav Celeznevon, a Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman, military trucks without license plates are blocking in the perimeter of concrete military bases. […]
MOSCOW — The U.S. government seems to believe that Russia has already established “complete operational control of the Crimean Peninsula.” American intelligence sources have cited no fewer than 6,000 Russian soldiers who were used to achieve this goal. (In a press conference Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin denied his country’s troops were currently occupying Crimea, […]
In the capital of Ukraine’s Crimea region, where ethnic Russians and otherwise pro-Russian citizens hold sway, dissenters are holding a countermovement to the pro-EU Maiden protests.
To understand the Maidan protesters in Kiev, just go to Prague, Warsaw and beyond. While other post-Soviet bloc economies have emerged, Ukrainians know too well that their leaders have failed them.
SOCHI – For those around the world watching the Olympic Games on television, the location of the event is not, in the end, what matters. The important thing is who is skating faster, spinning better and winning golds and silvers. And then, before we know it, they ski away – in just a couple of […]
Beijing is making infrastructure investments in and around Minsk that no one else is prepared to make. It may be a gateway to business in both Europe, and Russia.
KIEV — “Dude, are you drunk? Get out of here!” says Evgeni Dudchenko, a pro-EU protester who works security for the so-called Euromaidan movement, named for the square where the dissidents gather. He checks out everyone who wants to enter the demonstration area. “If someone is drunk, he’s out of here. Alcohol is forbidden here, […]
As overnight clashes in Kiev leave at least two dead, the Russian daily reports that the violence is being fed by nationalist groups that advocate open revolution.
PARIS — After he was in a car accident, Serge Fortuna was left with an infected wound that wouldn’t heal. When his doctors started talking about amputation, he refused and decided to try something else: a trip to the Republic of Georgia for phagotherapy, a treatment that uses specific bacteria-fighting viruses to heal antibiotic-resistant infections. […]
Eyewitnesses tell of the scenes of horror, while authorities still try to confirm if the second attack in two days was a suicide bombing.
Women farmers in Lower Congo have been the first to notice the effects of desertification, and the first to react.
The Colombian city hosts the most citizens displaced from rural areas by the country’s ongoing civil conflict. A special program allows these domestic refugees to farm in the city.
HAMBURG — It’s good to have a clear conscience about breakfast, so when the yogurt container or milk bottle pictures happy animals, it’s reassuring. Consumers frequently imagine happy cows in lush pastures and roomy stalls where everything is good. But that’s only part of the truth. To meet organic and animal rights standards, farmers are […]