Category - Blog

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...

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...

Konstantin asks why no-one ever considers what would come after a Chechen peace-deal with Russia.  He considers it for them, and comes to the unhappy conclusion that the conflict would become just another civil...

Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov has revealed that $7.6 billion from the auction of Yukos subsidiary Yuganskneftegaz has been received from Rosneft and transferred into the state budget.  However, Yuganskneftegaz...

This edition of the weekly news is dedicated to Rebecca, my lovely but long-suffering girlfriend, who celebrated her birthday yesterday. Domestic The Yukos affair rumbles on.  Foreign banks have demanded the...

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...

David McDuff has just posted a beautifully written eleven part series series about his experiences as a student of Moscow State University in the 1960s. It’s frightening, at times, how closely his observations of...

Update:  This post refers to Shamil Basayev’s interview with Channel 4 news in February 2005.  If you are coming to this post looking for news of Shamil Basayev’s ABC interview, check out my brief...

Update:  This post refers to Shamil Basayev’s interview with Channel 4 news in February 2005.  If you are coming to this post looking for news of Shamil Basayev’s ABC interview, check out my brief...