A Peek into Putin’s Russia and the future of the war in Ukraine
A year before Yevgeny Prigozhin led his Wagner group of mercenaries in a mutiny against his patron President Putin in June 2023, a book came out in London revealing the …
Russia
Kievan Russia (882−1242): The Original National State of Russians
In the years from 882 to 1242 the first and original national state organization of the Russians – the Kievan Russia (not Kyivan Rusia or Kyiv Rus’!) became directly and…
Bypassing Sanctions: Russia, Trade Routes and Outfoxing the West
Invention is the mother of necessity, and Russia’s response to largely Western-imposed economic and trade sanctions has shown the extent of that inventiveness. While enduring attritive punishment in its Ukraine…
West should urgently reconsider the dangerous, irrational concept of permanent hostility against Russia
For over a century the idea of Russia (or earlier the larger USSR) as a country that is necessarily and inevitably hostile (if not evil) has taken root in the…
Is ground beneath Biden’s Russia policy shifting?
The resignation of the US Undersecretary for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland, the third highest ranking diplomat in the Biden administration, came as a bolt out of the blue on Monday. …
Where Are Russia and the West Still Cooperating?
The once-promising era of Western and Russian cooperation has nearly vanished. The fragile remaining remnants leave lingering questions about the future of global stability. In November 2023, Russia’s withdrawal from…
U.S. And European Officials Begin Talks On Possible Peace Negotiations With Russia
U.S. and European officials have begun quietly talking to the Ukrainian government about what possible peace negotiations with Russia might entail to end the war, according to one current senior U.S.…
History of Russia in International Relations in the 1990s: Between the Western Colonization and Self-Interest
History and geopolitics The extreme geopolitical importance of Russia in global politics and international relations is seen as the best from the very basic facts about Russian geography. Russian Federation…
Some Remarks on Russia in Global Politics Today
It is a historical law that each state in the world changes with time. However, only a few states experienced dramatic change during the short period of time as Russia did…
Sergei Lavrov Condemns The Sanctions on North Korea
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday the geopolitical climate had changed completely since the United Nations imposed sanctions on North Korea, and he accused the West of breaking…
China And Russia Should Lead Global Governance Reform, Suggests Xi
Moscow and Beijing should “lead the correct direction of global governance reform,” said Chinese President Xi Jinping. Xi underlined that the development of the bilateral ties between China and Russia…
The Bizarre Episode of Yevgeny Prigozhin
More complete information is now available and reports of the event still do not “add up.” What we are told cannot be what exactly occurred. Coup is not thr correct…
Prigozhin goes into exile but left behind a can of worms
On Monday night, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the nation for the second time with the intention to bring the curtain down on the coup attempt by Wagner “founder” Yevgeny Prigozhin on…
Babbling about Prigozhin
A lot of nonsense is being spouted by a bevy of spontaneous “Russian experts” in light of the Prigozhin spray, a mutiny (no one quite knows what to call it),…
Prigozhin’s Revolt Reveals Dangers and Flaws of Depending on Mercenaries
Yevgeny Prigozhin may not have succeeded in realizing his ambitions, but his revolt had the unintended impact of focusing worldwide attention on the wider and serious problems involved in increasing…
The rise and fall of a Russian oligarch
The Kremlin leadership has acted decisively to meet the threat of an armed insurrection by the Russian oligarch and self-styled ‘founder’ of Wagner Group of military contractors, Yevgeny Prigozhin. In…
Russia: From Boris Yeltsin to Vladimir Putin
After the Cold War 1.0 (1949−1989) emerged many new problems in the international arena of global politics as the circumstances concerning international relations drastically have been changed. One of the…
Sanctions Batter Russia as the Kremlin Attempts to Overcome Them
Western economic punishments on Russia continue to severely limit its economic prospects. But they also risk hastening the development of sanctions evasion techniques and rival economic mechanisms outside the control…
What Do Americans Care About? Not a Cold War With Russia and China
The Biden administration will soon release its National Security Strategy, which is being revised in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The document will no doubt trigger a renewed debate about…
‘Leading from Behind’: Is Washington at War with Moscow?
Though Washington insists that it is not interested in a direct military conflict with Moscow, the latter claims that the US is, in fact, directly involved. But who is telling…
Where Does Russia Receive Its Aid From?
While Ukraine has received enormous aid from around the world since the Russian invasion began in February, open support for Russia should not be dismissed. On August 24, Ukraine’s independence…
The End of Laissez-Faire: Russia’s Attempt at Reshaping the World Economy
Starting on May 31, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov embarked on a tour to Gulf Cooperation Council countries, where he visited Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, among others. Lavrov’s…
Why “Cancel” Russians?
There is a persistent belief in both Europe and the United States that the "Western" economies are the most developed around, just as the "Western" culture and democracy, with its…
The Imperialist Roots of Putin’s Policy
A key factor that explains Vladimir Putin’s military invasion of Ukraine is traditional Russian imperialism. Throughout the world’s long and bloody history, other powerful territories (and, later, nations) expanded their…
The Russian Orthodox Church And The World Crisis
Extreme religious or anti-religious engagement of the ruling political forces in modern times would have serious negative consequences for the society as whole and the state apparatus. The Russian experience shows…
Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua: The US-Russia Conflict Enters a New Phase
As soon as Moscow received an American response to its security demands in Ukraine, it answered indirectly by announcing greater military integration between it and three South American countries, Nicaragua,…
Blinken delays US response to Russia
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warns of imminent Russian assault on Ukraine, scrambling to get allies to rally. (File photo) A special press briefing in unseemly hurry by the US…
Failure of NATO-Russia Council underscores the risk of war
Like the bilateral negotiations between the US and Russia on Monday, the meeting of the NATO-Russia Council on Wednesday also ended with no tangible result. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg…
Is Kazakhstan Russia’s next Ukraine?
With Russian troops massing on Ukraine's borders, it's not only Ukrainians who worry about what President Vladimir Putin may have in store for them. It's Kazakhs too. For now, Kazakhs…
Russia’s shadows in Sahel region
On Friday, Mali’s transitional government has clarified that it is engaged with Russian military trainers even as French troops are drawing down. So, it is official that Russian security personnel…
Spectre of war is haunting Europe
A fateful week is ending today for international security with the Russian Foreign Ministry releasing the two documents on security guarantees that Moscow had proposed to Washington as the basis…
Soviet Collapse, USSR’s Death Blow And Russian Government In The Mid-1990s
Russia President Vladimir Putin has lamented the collapse of the Soviet Union three decades ago as the demise of what he called "historical Russia" and said the economic crisis that…
Biden gets predictability in Russia ties
Moscow has butted the grand old transatlantic alliance in the chest on Monday with the foreign ministry announcing that it will suspend the NATO military liaison mission with effect from November 1…
What Kind of a Threat Is Russia?
On no subject is the bipartisan consensus more unshakable than on the Russian threat. In his latest book, The Stupidity of War: American Foreign Policy and the Case for Complacency, American…
EU and Russia’s Fraught Relationship – A Timeline
Russia and Europe share strong historical and cultural ties from time immemorial. But these ties did not translate into amicable trade relations between the two. The Russian Federation and the…
EU shelves Russia dialogue
But the bottom line is that the German-French initiative has caused a divide within the EU, with East European and Baltic countries that are closer geographically to Russia being wary…
The Ukrainian crisis and Biden’s interests
The strange policy, pursued by the present occupant of the White House during the past few weeks is fairly surprising. Moreover, Joe Biden’s actions vis-à-vis Russia are downright contradictory, to…
The Cold War, Rebooted and Rebranded
The future isn’t what it used to be. As a teenager in the 1970s, I watched a lot of TV science fiction shows, notably Space: 1999 and UFO, that imagined a near future…
Future Is The Son Of The Past, Dear Russia!
It is almost certain that Vladimir Putin will continue to be in office as elections in Russia are about to be held. Things have changed for Russia after the collapse…
Is The Russian Government, Under Direction From President Putin, Silencing Dissidents?
From the number of deceased Russian dissidents, complicity in their demise seems plausible. From evidence, thought, and logic, complicity seems unlikely: (1) Only circumstantial links to Putin’s office have been established…
Reactive Mismeasures: The New Yorker And The “New” Cold War Propaganda (Part 1)
This is the first part (of 5 ) of a paragraph by paragraph commentary on a recent article posing as journalism in the March 6, 2017 issue of The New…
Instead Of ‘Draining The Swamp’, Trump Is Feeding The Alligators
Zerohedge’s “Tyler Durden” headlined on February 21st, “Bannon Breaks With Pence, Delivers Warning To Europe” and noted that before U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and U.S. Secretary of Defense…
We Must Not Demonize And Threaten Russia
Eisenhower's warning In his famous farwell address, US President Dwight Eisenhower eloquently described the terrible effects of an overgrown military-industrial complex. Here are his words: “We have been compelled to…
Russia:Enemy Of Western Democracy?
There is a great deal of continuity in Russian history from the reign of Peter the Great until the present. There was clear discontinuity during the Bolshevik Revolution and the…
Russian Ambassador Shot Dead In Ankara: Fall Out Of Allepo or Abortive Anti-Erdogan Coup
The Russian ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, was shot in the back and killed Monday (12/19) by a sacked police officer who shouted "Don't forget Aleppo" and "Allahu Akbar" as…
1943 Gov’t Film Offers Sharp Contrast With Current US Elite Attitude Toward Russia
The film The Battle of Russia, produced in 1943 by the US War Department (which was renamed the Defense Department in 1949), illustrates a respectful and favorable US elite view…
Trump’s Biggest Test So Far
On December 7th, was posed the biggest test so far of the mettle of America’s President-Elect, Donald Trump. He had said several times during his campaign, that if elected as…
A Visit To Russia For “Life Extension” Of The Planet
On October 9, I was in the Nevada desert with Catholic Workers from around the world for an action of prayer and nonviolent resistance at what is now called…
At Risk of Being Dupes
In the midst of rising tensions between the U.S. and Russia, a small delegation of peace activists travels to Moscow and St. Petersburg to learn from Russian people about…
What’s At Stake
In the historic port city of Yalta, located on the Crimean Peninsula, we visited the site where Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, in February of 1945, concluded negotiations ending World War…
America Trashes NATO Founding Act; Rushes Weapons To Russia’s Borders
The NATO Founding Act was agreed to between the U.S. and Russia in 1997 in order to provide to Russia’s leader Boris Yeltsin some modicum of assurance that America wouldn’t…
NATO Provocation Of Russia: The Political Establishment’s Hubris
There are dangerous provocations along Russia's western border that have received little or incredibly one-sided coverage by the U.S. media. Thus the U.S. public is not aware of the…
NATO’s Jens Stoltenberg Toes The Line On Power And Politics
I wasn’t at first going to listen to Rosemary Barton’s interview (CBC) with NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg considering I would probably not learn anything new. But I did and…
Crimeans Recount Their Experiences When The West Took Ukraine
This news-report consists of a compilation of accounts that Crimeans have given to human rights groups or directly posted to the internet, regarding their experiences when the freely elected President…
Obama Ignores Russia’s Valid National Security Worries
When the democratically elected President of Ukraine was violently overthrown in February 2014 and replaced by a rabidly anti-Russian regime, not only the residents in the areas of Ukraine that…
NATO Threatens Europe With Annihilation
NATO is supposed to be a defensive alliance, whose purpose is to “protect Europe from aggression”; but today it is aggressive tool of the United States. Today NATO is threatening…
NATO Orders Four Additional Battalions To Russian Border
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is sending 4,000 additional troops to Eastern Europe in the name of reassuring Poland and the Baltic states, the alliance’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg…
Why Go To Russia?
Since 1983, Sharon Tennison has worked to develop ordinary citizens’ capacities to avert international crises, focusing on relations between the U.S. and Russia. Now, amid a rising crisis in relations…
NATO Says It Might Now Have Grounds To Attack Russia
On Tuesday, June 14th, NATO announced that if a NATO member country becomes the victim of a cyber attack by persons in a non-NATO country such as Russia or China,…
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