NewsTrust - Russia - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

Op-Ed Contributor: Russia, 20 Years Along

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By By ARIEL COHEN - Dec. 02 (Opinion) - Two decades since the fall of the Soviet Union, the “bright future” has not come.

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Mikhail Khodorkovsky: The latest victim of Vladimir Putin's vendetta politics

Mon, 27 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Simon Tisdall - Dec. 27 (Opinion) - Vladimir Putin's unforgiving brand of vendetta politics today claimed another prominent victim with the guilty verdict against Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former oil magnate who dared oppose the Kremlin strongman. There was never going to be any other result. In modern-day Russia, challenging Putin is like standing in front of a tank. Either get out of the way or expect – sooner or later – to be flattened.

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US embassy cables: The job of the media is not to protect power from embarrassment

Mon, 29 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Simon Jenkins - Nov. 29 (Opinion) - It is for governments – not journalists – to guard public secrets, and there is no national jeopardy in WikiLeaks' revelations Is it justified? Should a newspaper disclose virtually all a nation's secret diplomatic communication, illegally downloaded by one of its citizens? The reporting in tomorrow's Guardian of the first of a selection of 250,000 US state department cables marks a recasting of modern diplomacy. Clearly, there is no longer such a thing as a safe electronic archive, whatever computing's snake-oil salesmen claim. No organisation can treat digitised communication as confidential. An electronic secret is a contradiction in terms. Anything said or done in the name of a democracy is, prima facie, of public interest. When that democracy purports to be "world policeman" – an assumption that runs ghostlike through these cables – that interest is global.

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The keys to Pyongyang

Wed, 24 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Simon Tisdall - Nov. 24 (Opinion) - Korea is not all that much of a mystery. This is, for once, a conundrum with a solution. North Korea and its paranoid, attention-seeking leaders want a number of things the South and the western powers can supply, if so minded. This has been the case for years.

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Russia on trial

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Jackson Diehl - Nov. 08 (Opinion) - Russia's tradition of autocracy has always been matched by that of the suffering, ascetic dissident who speaks truth to power. In the modern era there was Solzhenitsyn. There were Sharansky and Sakharov. And now, somewhat improbably, comes Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Unlike his recent predecessors, Khodorkovsky is not a great writer or a human rights activist. He is an entrepreneur who played by the rough rules of Russia's immediate post-Soviet era. "I am not at all an ideal man," he says. And yet, thanks to Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, he has become his country's latest moral champion.

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St. Petersburg: A Glimpse Of What Russia Is Not

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

NPR - Aug. 26 (Opinion) -

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Big Government in Russia

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Public Radio International - By Marco Werman - Apr. 21 (Interview) - Russia ranks 120th on a World Bank list of attractive business climates – that poor standing is due to low transparency and impenetrable bureaucracy, mostly left over from Soviet times. But Vladimir Putin today pledged to free Russian businesses from excessive paperwork. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Nikolas Gvosdev at the Naval War College.

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Kaczynski body returned to Poland

Sun, 11 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - Apr. 11 - Poland holds a two-minute tribute for President Lech Kaczynski and other senior figures killed in a plane crash in Russia.

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Kyrgyzstan: The not so great game

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - Apr. 09 (Editorial) - America's collusion with corruption and Russia's cheerleading have played out in the unravelling chaos of Kyrgyzstan

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Is Russia finally realizing it can't modernize without putting its Stalinist past to rest?

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Slate - By Anne Applebaum - Apr. 06 (Opinion) - it often happens that countries that might once have gone to war play out their antagonisms through other means. The immigration debate plays this role in Mexican-American relations. For a time, the trade dispute over softwood lumber (yes, really) fulfilled this function in Canadian-American relations: At stake were different attitudes toward the role of government in industry, Canada's sensitivity to American economic power, and many other things besides, though you wouldn't know it if you weren't paying attention.

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The working of the reset policy

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

The Hindu - By Vladimir Radyuhin - Feb. 03 (Opinion) - A year after the new United States administration promised to “press the reset button” on ties with Russia, the two nations have reversed the dangerous slide towards confrontation, but are yet to bring about a real turnaround in bilateral relations that are plagued by a gruesome lack of trust.

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Europe's Verdict on the Georgia War

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - Oct. 03 (Opinion) - Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed.

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How to Press the Advantage With Iran

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Flynt Leverett, Hillary Mann Leverett - Sep. 29 (Opinion) - Instead of relying on sanctions, the Obama administration should seek a strategic realignment with Iran, as President Nixon did with China.

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Remember Afghanistan, Comrade?

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Anna Matveeva - Aug. 18 (Opinion) - Twenty years ago, massive casualties forced Gorbachev into a troop withdrawal. The parallels with today are haunting Do you remember Afghanistan, Comrade? This was a Soviet Afghan war song of the 1980s. "Do you, comrade, remember Afghanistan? Glows of fires, Muslim cries?" I am sure British soldiers have their own songs, it?s just I don?t know them. God bless them anyhow. The (1979-1989) is something nobody in Russia likes to recall now unless they have to. The 10-year intervention cost around 15,000 Soviet lives, a huge number compared with the 204 . What were the attitudes towards casualties in the society then? First, the war was seen as senseless. Nobody could comprehend what Soviet troops were doing in Afghanistan. The official ...

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The fog of war

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Aug. 13 (Opinion) - ONE year after the Georgian war, its outcome is as debatable as the cause. Depending on where you stand, the war can be seen as the sinister culmination of a systematic provocation by a neo-imperialist Russia or as a murderously aggressive gambit by a

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Editorial - Slain for Daring to Report - NYTimes.com

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - Jul. 17 (Editorial) - New York TimesSlain for Daring to ReportNew York TimesThe murder of Natalya Estemirova, an investigator into the brutality of Chechnya's Kremlin-backed regime, has the grisly signature of a long string of murder with impunity in Vladimir Putin's Russia. Ms. Estemirova was kidnapped by gunmen Wednesday in ...Lawless Atmosphere Cited in Death of Russian JournalistVoice of AmericaAnother Death in RussiaWall Street JournalDimitry Medvedev rejects claim Chechen leader ordered killingguardian.co.ukBBC News?-Reuters?-The Associated Pressall 467 news articles??

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Welcome to Moscow

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Jul. 02 (Opinion) - Over the past ten years, under Vladimir Putin’s leadership, Russia has become more nationalistic, corrupt and corporatist. Its economy, although much bigger than a decade ago, is even more dependent on oil and gas, an industry now controlled by a small group of kleptocratic courtiers and former spies. The decision by Ikea, a well-known Swedish furniture supplier once bullish about Russia, to suspend investment because of graft is an indictment of the dire commercial climate (see article). Its non-energy exports are smaller than Sweden’s.

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North Korea, the Next Iraq?

Thu, 28 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Atlantic Monthly - By Robert D. Kaplan - May. 28 (Opinion) - If he doesn’t hit North Korea hard with sanctions, he risks demonstrating to Iran that America is a pushover. Indeed, Obama’s Iran policy – which requires the stick of tough action in addition to the carrot of talks and recognition – is on the line in North Korea. On the other hand, vigorous sanctions against North Korea could lead to the collapse of the regime. And anyone who talks breezily about “helping” North Korea to collapse has simply not learned the lesson of Iraq: The only thing worse than a totalitarian state is no state at all.

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Provoking Russia - The Boston Globe

Mon, 29 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Boston Globe - By Muammar Gaddafi - Dec. 29 (Opinion) - ONCE AGAIN, the West's policy toward Russia and its addiction to interfering in the affairs of other countries is having dangerous effects on the rest of the world. The seeds for the current danger were sown by NATO's expansion to Russia's borders after the fall of the Soviet Union. That deliberate, provocative, and continuing process echoes in Russia's long memory the painful experience of the Napoleonic and German armies storming across Europe into their motherland, hell-bent on conquest.

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General offers lessons learned by Soviet Union in Afghanistan

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Boston Globe - By Megan K Stack - Dec. 05 (Interview) - Q. In its invasion of Afghanistan, do you believe the United States benefited from the Soviet experience? Do you see any evidence of your lessons from the Soviet defeat? A. I can tell you which mistakes you made and which mistakes we made. They are the same mistakes. We set up a very weak leader, Babrak Karmal. He didn't have prestige with the people. Today the leadership of Afghanistan does not enjoy popularity with the people.

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Russia Out of Rehab

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Opinion Journal (WSJ) - Nov. 18 (Editorial) - Russia needed only a few days this August to drive Georgia's army into retreat. In the aftermath, Europe has held out only a bit longer than Tbilisi's troops.

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Dirty tricks in Ukraine

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By James Marson - Oct. 17 (Opinion) - You couldn't make this stuff up. Or actually, you probably could. The scans of the document that the website provides have no signatures and no stamps. When Izvestiya alleged that Yushchenko had sold weapons directly to Georgia from the Ukrainian armed forces during the recent war, it came up with some evidence that at the very least looked convincing.

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Russia's Strategy: 'What's Looming in Ukraine Is more Threatening than Georgia'

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Der Spiegel - By Uwe Klussmann, Matthias Schepp - Oct. 16 (Interview) - In an interview, Kremlin-aligned political strategist Vyacheslav Nikonov argues that the recent war in South Ossetia and bickering over Ukraine doesn't mean Moscow is steering into a confrontation course. But if Kiev entered NATO, he says it would spell the end of Russian cooperation with the West.

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Russia and Europe's testy relationship - Too soon to kiss and make up

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Economist - Oct. 16 (Opinion) - The West needs to keep talking to Russia about many things, notably efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and further reductions in Russia’s and America’s own nuclear arsenals. Yet it would be wrong to heed calls from the likes of Germany, Italy and their allies to start talks now on a new partnership agreement, as if the Georgian war had never happened. The main reason for this is that the troop withdrawal is largely bogus.

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Letter from Moscow: Russian Patriotism Unleashed by Georgian War

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Der Spiegel - By Fred Weir - Oct. 15 (Opinion) - Russia’s national psyche has turned around, and it’s not just the well-known tonic that a small, victorious war can often deliver. This change has been evolving for years, ever since Vladimir Putin came to power and began restoring central power and order in a country devastated by a decade of economic implosion and social collapse. Russia’s nine-year-old economic boom, fuelled by oil and gas exports, has silently transformed the entire social landscape.

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