26 QuickLinks

Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Tom Balforth: Rivals in Conciliation ("Russia Profile")
As the presidential electoral race kicked off in Ukraine last week, both frontrunners pledged to revive severed ties with Moscow. While Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko promised a new phase of “equal and honorable” relations with the Kremlin in her opening speech on October 24, Party of the Regions leader Viktor Yanukovich said that renewing “a fully-fledged partnership with Russia” was his foreign policy priority.

Monday, August 3, 2009
Russia: The Aggrieved Great Power. By Leonid Luks
(1 comments) Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia turned into an aggrieved colossus -- anxious to restore its status as a world power. In this respect, Russia’s situation resembles that of inter-war Germany. In Russian history too, there were similar periods which saw the country acting like an aggrieved great power. Such an example from the Russian past are the years following the famous Crimean War f 1853-1856.

Thursday, July 2, 2009
Mara Lazda: An International Reconsideration of Fascism (H-German)
Roger Griffin, Werner Loh, Andreas Umland, eds., Fascism Past and Present, West and East: An International Debate on Concepts and Cases in the Comparative Study of the Extreme Right. Stuttgart: Ibidem Verlag, 2006. 510 pp. ISBN 978-3-89821-674-6; $43.90 (paper), ISBN 978-3-89821-674-6. Reviewed by Mara Lazda (Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts). Published on H-German (July, 2009)

Saturday, February 28, 2009
Susan Richards: Russians don't much like the West
(1 comments) Russian public opinion has fallen out of love with the Western model of liberal democracy, a new study suggests (Open Democracy, 25 February 2009).

Saturday, February 28, 2009
Tatiana Kosinova: Battle for Russia's past
The raid by on Memorial's offices in St Petersburg in December 2008 has far wider ramifications for Russia's identity and history. What action have the courts taken? And what was the real purpose of the raid? (Open Democracy, 19 February 2009)

Thursday, February 5, 2009
The beginning of a new Russian 'thaw'?
While the question of Medvedev's actual power remains open, his almost one-hour-long meeting last Thursday with Dmitry Muratov, the editor-in-chief of Russia's main independent periodical Novaya Gazeta, gives reason for hope.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009
The end of Russia?
On its present course, Russia is doomed, claims the distinguished historian, Yury Afanasiev. Why did reform change nothing? Why has the wheel of history turned back to autocracy? 500 years of oppression are reaching a terrible climax. In this important, excoriating essay, he challenges his people to face the truth about their history.

Saturday, December 20, 2008
Career Army Specialist sues Rumsfeld, Cheney, saying no evacuation order given on 9/11
A career Army specialist who survived the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, claims that no evacuation was ordered inside the Pentagon, despite flight controllers calling in warnings of approaching hijacked aircraft nearly 20 minutes before the building was struck.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Russia's Constitutional Ailments
Putin himself - as a private person rather than as an office holder - is the country's remaining locus of power. Today, Russia has a strikingly personalistic form of political rule that is unusual, if not anachronistic for a highly developed country, in the 21st century.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008
The Russian Trail in Turkey's Ergenekon Scandal: Who is Alexander Dugin?
Should Dugin and Co. continue to exert their impact on the Russian elite and population, the currently emerging second Cold War between Moscow and the West will stay with us, for the years to come.

Saturday, November 15, 2008
Andreas Umland: Medvedev wants to re-democratize Russia
In formulating its future policies toward Moscow, the West should take notice that the formally most powerful politician of Russia can be counted as a firm supporter of democratic values.

Monday, October 27, 2008
Cathy Young, Sympathy for the Devil: Why is the American left making excuses for Putin's Russia?
(2 comments) There is something puzzling about the sympathy for Russia evident in many quarters of the American left - from Glenn Greenwald and Noam Chomsky to Alexander Cockburn and Katrina vanden Heuvel.

Monday, October 27, 2008
Glenn Greenwald, The Russia/Georgia conflict and the tactics of 2002
Over at "Reason Magazine," in an article by Contributing Editor Cathy Young, I stand accused of harboring "sympathy for Russia"; tolerance of, and perhaps even support for, Putin's internal repression and oligarchical rule; and overarching anti-Americanism, or -- as she puts it -- overriding allegiance to "the cause of sticking a finger in America's eye."

Friday, October 10, 2008
Russian Claims of Privileged Sphere Draw Criticism
(1 comments) In the wake of Russia's assault on Georgia, its claims of a "privileged" sphere of influence within the boundaries of the former Soviet Union, along with the declaration of a right to intervene on behalf of Russian citizens outside its borders, have drawn expressions of confusion, dismay and outright rejection in the United States and Europe.

Friday, October 3, 2008
Fred Weir: Moscow's Moves in GeorgiaTrack a Script by Right-Wing Prophet
(1 comments) Once derided by Russia's pro-Western elites, Alexander Dugin now looks like a geopolitical prophet. And he apparently has the Kremlin's ear. His books championed the view that Russia's efforts to integrate with the global community were doomed to be swept away by fresh waves of conflict between Moscow and Washington over control of Georgia, Ukraine, and the ex-Soviet states of Central Asia.

Friday, October 3, 2008
Tony Barber and Charles Clover: Invasion's ideologues
Today, against the backdrop of conflict in Georgia and deteriorating relations with the west, Russia's ultra-nationalist thinkers are starting to exert unprecedented influence.

Thursday, October 2, 2008
Who pushed Medvedev?
(4 comments) Following the five-day war against Georgia, Russia and the West are on the brink of a new cold war. Medvedev's initially stated aims - opening and democratizing the country - would now appear to be a dangerous luxury. While the Russian nation loses from being again driven into the position of an international pariah, many influential people in Moscow, especially its numerous anti-American politicians and pundits, win.

Sunday, August 24, 2008
Russian Citizenship: Moscow's Tool for Recollecting the Empire's Lands
(3 comments) There is a subtle difference between, on the one hand, a state's protection of the lives and dignity of its citizens living in another country, and, on the other hand, a government defending citizens who are engaged in creating their own independent state on the territory of another country, i.e. Georgia. When many South Ossetians chose to become citizens of Russia, they changed the nature of their political aspirations.

Sunday, May 4, 2008
Ukraine and "Russophobia" Uncensored
(1 comments) The term "Russophobia" reflects a soft approach at dealing with the hard core anti-Russian prejudices. "Anti-Russian" and "Russia unfriendly" can thus be considered more accurate (though not always so perfect) alternatives to "Russophobia".

Saturday, May 3, 2008
Alexander J. Motyl: Is Putin's Russia Fascist?
(5 comments) Although Putin's Russia possesses the defining characteristics of fascism, they have not yet assumed the form of a consolidated, coherent and hence fully-stable political system. These characteristics have emerged haphazardly only in the last few years, and although they may now all be in place, it is not yet clear that they are here to stay.

Saturday, April 26, 2008
Kremlin Overkill: Why Putin's entry into party politics is the beginning of the end of Russian facade democracy
(2 comments) As a result of Putin's direct participation in the Kremlin-manipulated political process and Russia's resulting return to a de facto one-party system, the Russian electoral process has been reduced to a manifestly formal procedure. Published in the English version of the Kyiv weekly "Zerkalo nedeli [Mirror of the Week]," No. 38(667) 13-19 October 2007.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Ukraine, NATO, and German Foreign Policy: Berlin and Russian Interests in the Former USSR
(1 comments) Germany's stand on Ukraine's current participation NATO's Membership Action Plan is less related to any particular pro-Russianness. Instead, it seems driven by another – eventually, more rational – assessment of the implications that a NATO offer for Ukrainian participation in MAP would have. Published by the UNIAN News Agency on April 21st, 2008.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Will United Russia become a fascist party?
(7 comments) The new head of ideology of Russia's ruling party Ivan Demidov wants to spread the ideas of Alexander Dugin, Moscow's notorious apologist of fascism. Published in "Turkish Daily News," April 15th, 2008, www.turkishdailynews.com.tr.

Sunday, April 13, 2008
Between the Weimar and Bonn Scenarios: Post-Soviet Russian Anti-Americanism and the Post-War German Experience
(1 comments) In spite of relative political stabilization and impressive economic growth during the last years, ultra-nationalism, rabid anti-Americanism and a Russian equivalent of the "Dolchstosslegende" (legend of a stab in the back) have become major intellectual and political trends in the Russian Federation, and are reminiscent of the Weimar Republic. Published in "Russia Profile," May 24, 2007, & "American Chronicle," April 8, 2008.

Friday, April 4, 2008
Taras Kuzio: Germany against Kyiv's Westward push
In not supporting Ukraine's membership in either NATO or the EU, German nationalism has shown itself to be disinterested in the promotion of democracy beyond its immediate neighbors. Published in the Ukrainian weekly "Kyiv Post," on April 3rd, 2008, http://www.kyivpost.com/

Monday, March 24, 2008
"Cold War II?" in: The National Interest Online, 16 January 2008
Russia's establishment has adopted a paranoid worldview. Moscow's mainstream TV and radio stations, major newspapers and political spokesmen have been spreading the idea that most of Russia's problems come from abroad. If the popularization of Moscow radicals' Manichean views continues in Russian society unabated, sooner or later we will find ourselves in another Cold War.