Putin has been racking up the airmiles this last few weeks.  By my count, he’s been to:

• Ukraine – where he endorsed Yanukovich as his choice for Governor President
• Chile – were he announced details about the first Chilean Cosmonaut.
• Brazil – where he tried to sell some airplanes.
• India – where he supported

… Read the rest

Today it was announced that Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), India’s state own energy company plans to bid against Gazprom in the auction for Yukos subsidiary Yuganskneftegaz.

Hooray!  Putin is allowing free and fair competition in the scrap over Yukos’ corpse.  No cut price bargains here for oligarchs with close connections… Read the rest

Nick at A Fistful of Euros has an interesting article up about what the Ukraine crisis could mean for the EU a couple of decades from now.

I have a feeling that the Ukrainian crisis may, when we look back at it from ten or twenty years down the line, turn

… Read the rest

The Sunday Times today passes on an interesting rumour that Russia is going to offer sanctuary Ukraine’s outgoing President Leonid Kuchma should he be forced to flee . 

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, who last week met Kuchma in Moscow, is believed to have offered him a haven in Russia

… Read the rest

And not only that – he wants India to have a veto vote, too.

"I am convinced that permanent seats on the Security Council should have veto power, otherwise it would be a one-sided reform of the U.N.," Putin told reporters on a visit to India.

These… Read the rest

Uzbek President Islam Karimov, in complete contrast to his earlier comments on the subject, today announced that Russia’s meddling in Ukraine’s election was counterproductive:

“Russia’s excessive demonstration of its willingness to see a certain outcome in the vote has done more harm than good,” Reuters quoted Karimov as saying at a

… Read the rest

The BBC reports that the crisis in Ukraine is hitting the economy hard.  Foreign trade down $4 million per day, the country has lost $184 million in tax revenue, and the government has had to spend $400 million of its reserves to protect the value of the hryvnya.  Ukraine’s uncertain political and… Read the rest

Concerns are rising that Ukraine is about to split into two.  A lot of this is scaremongering, and actually things do look relatively calm on the streets, but the risk of conflict remains very real and I wonder if, actually, it is time for Ukraine to split. 

The chances of some kind of move… Read the rest

Reuters has an amateur video from Ukraine which seems to be showing electoral fraud:

• Yuschenko party officials being beaten up.
• People being bused from polling station to polling station in government vans.
• A Janitor who is upset that someone has just stuffed a bunch of voter complaint forms down his toilet.  (Frankly, I

… Read the rest

Alex(ei) at Russian Dilettante points out that, whatever we may think, Russia does have legitimate interests in Ukraine:

It’s bad that Putin’s team let Russia’s involvement be interpreted as Russia’s trying to stifle democracy in Ukraine. It’s not true — it would be if only 20% supported Yanukovich — Putin is mostly promoting… Read the rest

(Note:  I’ve written more on Russia and Ukraine since this post – head to the home page for more).

One of the wilder rumours flying around Ukraine right now is that Russian troops have been flown in and are guarding the Presidential building.  I’m not in Kiev, so I can’t comment authoritavely, but I don’t… Read the rest

Opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko has rejected the results of the Ukrainian Presidential election and called thousands of his supporters onto the streets of Kiev to protest.

I’ve only just managed to grab ten minutes to write this so, if you want in-depth blog coverage of the protests, check out A Fistful of Euros, Read the rest

This week a rumour surfaced that Russia was about to send a small detachment of troops to Iraq. Recent developments are beginnng to make this rumour sound almost plausible…

The Economist reports that the end is nigh for Khodorkovsky’s empire.

There can be little doubt that, by the end of the year, Yukos, an oil company that has drawn the ire of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and his coterie in the Kremlin, will be a shadow of its former self.

… Read the rest

The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office has just released its Human Rights Annual Report 2004.   In their (1.4Mb!) section on Russia, they’ve chosen to focus exclusively on the situation in Chechnya arguing quite rightly that it "remains by far the most serious human rights issue in Russia."

But unfortunately they’ve really dropped the… Read the rest

I had intended to post about Damian Grammaticas’ BBC article about the decline of Russian villages, but two other bloggers have beaten me to it, and done it better, too.  Basically Grammaticas is arguing that the decline of Russian villages is mainly due to the collapse of communism and introduction of capitalism

Alan Sullivan… Read the rest

Yesterday I noted John Shaw’s claims that Russia removed weaponry from Iraq just prior to the 2003 invasion. I argued his claims were rubbish. Now it turns out even the US administration doesn’t support Shaw’s claims.

Scott McClellan, George Bush’s press secretary, when asked about Russian involvement replied:

“I have no information that points

… Read the rest

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been attracting quite a bit of criticism on his visit to Ukraine for allegedly interfering in the Presidential election there. But what caught my eye was Putin’s statement about his own Presidency. On Ukrainian tv he commented:

“the Russian constitution allows two consecutive presidential terms. I am going to be

… Read the rest