The Russia Blog
Note: The following article also appears in issue 7 of SHIFT magazine.
This September, the heads of each of the EU’s 27 member states met in Brussels for what was only the Union’s 2nd ever emergency summit. Russia had just crushed its neighbour Georgia in a short, sharp war, and only one item… Read the rest
The MIT World Policy Journal is celebrating its 25th anniversary by making access to its Fall 2008 journal for free until the end of November.
The 25th anniversary issue looks ahead to the next 25 years and, in Russia’s Rotting Empire, Nina L Khrushcheva (yes – before you ask – she’s Nikita Kruschev’s… Read the rest
Dmitry Medvedev gives his first annual state of the nation speech, and announces that he’d like to extend the Russian Presidential term from 4 to 6 years. So what does the world’s press write about?
That Russia plans to deploy missiles close to the EU’s border to neutralise the US missile shield. Oh, and… Read the rest
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has decided to pull an article from the next issue of the US-published Foreign Affairs journal.
Joseph Nye (the soft power guy) offers up four reasons why Russia will not be a major power in 2020:
They are failing to diversify away from energy and develop a broad based economy rapidly enough. 
Captain’s Quarters wonders what’s behind the recent spate of nuclear ‘incidents’ that can be traced back to Russia in one way or another:
A couple of scenarios could be in play. The first is that Putin has decided to gain hard cash by putting fissile material on the black market, which is not only
Charlie Ganske at Russia Blog has a thoughtful post about whether Russia should focus its energies on maintaining a nuclear arsenal, or on preventing the breakup of the Motherland.
Today’s Washington Times features a story on Russia’s successful test of a maneuverable re-entry warhead. While this may bolster the national pride of Russian scientists
OSCE delegates are considering a raft of Russian proposals to make the organisation ‘more effective.’ Russia effectively held a gun to the OSCE’s head a year ago, when it threatened to withold it’s budget contributions unless it’s proposals were taken seriously.
In particular, Russian diplomats want to force changes to the Office of Democratic Institutions… Read the rest
A joint Chinese-Russian military exercise is underway in the Russian Far East, the first between the two countries. 10,000 personnel are involved in an operation that is said to be one of humanitarian assistance:
[T]he scenario for these exercises – aid to a state suffering political violence – isn’t aimed against
David McDuff points to what he sees as a trend towards censorship of English language translations of Russian media reports.
With the Kremlin’s increasing stranglehold on the flow of information out of Russia, it’s becoming evident that English-language versions of Russian press reports and commentaries, especially if they come from sources
The Guardian today claims that Russia is sheltering Bosnian war ciminals, including a number suspected of involvement in the Srebrenica massacre, from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
The revelation has come to light after Gojko Jankovic, a Bosnian Serb, surrended himself after four years living in Moscow and the Guardian recovered… Read the rest
The Kyoto Protocol comes into force today, 90 days after Russia’s ratification meant that countries making up 55% of global energy are now signed up.
A major part of the protocol involves the creation of a market for buying and selling carbon emission credits – if a country’s emissions fall within its quota, it… Read the rest
While there is much hype about the increasingly close relationship between Russia and China, media coverage of Russo-Japanese relations tend to focus almost exclusively on the lack of a post-WW2 peace treaty between the two and the future of the Kurile Islands, which Russia currently controls but both states claim.
This NYT article, however, shows… Read the rest
Window on the Arab World notes that neither Russia nor Syria have been paying attention in history class, and are still stuck in a timewarp of ultra-realist international politics.
So instead of recognizing the course of history and moving toward the free world, Syria has decided to become a post-Soviet Soviet
Rumours have been flying in the Russian and Israeli press that Russia is about to sell a batch of SS-26 Iskander-E missiles to Syria. They’re kind of like SCUDs, only better.
Israel is vehemently opposed to the sale, which it says could bring all of Israel within range of Syrian missiles. But, given that… Read the rest
The number of Russian nationals killed by the Asian Tsunami is relatively low, compared to that of other nations. So far, I’ve only been able to find figures for casualties in Thailand, which stand at 10 killed, with only 16 unaccounted for.
Russia is also providing aid to the region, although it is… Read the rest
