100 posts
A Moscow-based friend has just received this letter from his hr department
Dear XXXXI need to ask you to bring me medical certificates about absence of the following diseases for Work permit:lepromatous leprosy chancroid tuberculosis syphilis Chlamydia limphogrannulema HIV test (HIV certificate is needed) test on the abs...
secret plan to expel Baltic states from Europe
The Kremlin is trying secretly to discredit the Baltic states by organising their public humiliation on television. This I suspect one of the opening efforts.
New anti-Putin site
As attention on the Sochi Olympics grows, so do the critics' efforts, like this.
Yanukovych visits Moscow, pledges better relations
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych has visited Moscow for his second foreign visit since being sworn in. Long considered a pro-Kremlin politician, he said he wanted to open "a new page" in relations with Moscow. READ MORE...
Russian military
Amid all the worries about the Mistral sale (now four, and with a gas deal thrown in) it is worth bearing in mind how weak the Russian military actually is. This presentation of the impending collapse of the "wpk" (military-industrial complex) by Jul...
The Limits of Pragmatism
I just read a commentary on openDemocracy by Rein Mullerson, an expert in international law and the rector of Tallinn University Nord. In it, Mullerson argues that cooler heads who sincerely want to understand Russia must realize that the Kremlin s...
Does the French Warship Sale to Russia Constitute an Infringement of EU Law?
There is an interesting argument about the sale by France of a Mistral class warship to Russia. Latvia and Lithuania think that the sale may infringe the Common Position 2008/944/CFSP defining common rules governing control of exports of military tec...
New Russian Military Doctrine Opposes NATO Enlargement
After several delays, the long-awaited new Russian military doctrine was finally approved by President Dmitry Medvedev on February 5. The document did not include the rumored lowering of the nuclear threshold, despite recent public comments on the is...
From Russia with cold: 30 hour Moscow experience
Taxi driver no 1: "Until this country starts producing something, it will go nowhere" Lyudmila Alexeyeva: "It is not awarded to me, but rather to all of us, especially those, who have lost their lives for the cause. If they were alive, they would be...
M or M (Modernization or Marginalization): Which Future for Russia?
Russia’s present dilemma could be described as modernization or marginalization (“M or M”). This is more or less clear to Russia’s leaders. Putin evoked it in his “millennium article” in December 1999; Medvedev&rsq...
Interview: McFaul On U.S., Russian Stereotypes And His Controversial Co-Chair
The first meeting of the U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission’s Civil Society Working Group was held in Washington on January 27. The group is part of a larger effort begun last summer by U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian Preside...
Medvedev Signs Protocol 14 ECHR
Yesterday, the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has signed the law approving Protocol 14 ECHR, reports press agency ITAR-TASS. This was the last remaining step to take before Russia formally ratifies by depositing its acceptance with the Council of...
Problems of Georgia-Ossetia “Bordering”
The new 2010 year was marked by new incidents within Georgia-Ossetia relations. And although there are no confrontations even slightly reminding the situation of 2004-2008 first days of this year were marked by a number of alarm symptoms …&nbs...
Berlin–Rome–Ankara
Following the results of the meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan his Russian colleague Vladimir Putin suggested to deepen the cooperation within energy sphere by assets exchanging. First of all the case is about the access to the...
Improvement of Russian - Azerbaijani relations may change Russia's position on regional issues: Armenian expert
After Moscow demonstrated its desire to improve relations with Baku, Armenia should be more concerned with a more serious shift in Russian policy, Director of Armenian Center for National and International Studies Richard Giragosianbelieves. REA...
EU-Russia Relations: a chance not to be missed
When Russia gained sovereignty in 1991, after the dissolution of the USSR, the “new state” immediately looked to the EU for recognition of its new Western identity. The relations between EU and Russia have been characterized by up and down in the...
Russian Oil Pipeline to Asia: Reports
There are a two interesting analytical reports on the opening of the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean (ESPO) oil pipeline that links Russian oil to Asian markets. Euractiv has published an analysis by Wojciech Konończuk by Centre for Eastern Studies on th...
Russian Duma Has Accepted Protocol 14 Today
The Russian Duma has ratified Protocol 14 today (a majority of 392 votes out of 450). The other branch of the legislative, the Federation Council, now has to accept it still. Following protracted negotiations it will now be guaranteed for Russia that...
Russia and the ratification of Protocol 14 (Update)
Finally: The New York Times reports that Russia is going to re-enter into the ratification process of Protocol 14 to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) today. The ratification will allow the long awaited reform of the European Court of H...
Belarus’ Oil Sector: A Target of Opportunity for Moscow
Russia’s threat to abolish its oil subsidies to Belarus aim not only to punish Minsk for its recent rapprochement with the European Union, but also to put the oil processing and oil transit in Belarus under the control of Russian companies.&nbs...
Time for a "Russian energy weapon" scare?
Britain facing gas shortages as freezing weather continues Britain is braced for the prospect of...
Because it just wouldn't be New Year's without...
...A gas crisis.EUobserver has reported that there are warning signs of yet another gas crisis on the horizon, with Ukraine looking for high transit fees. Though the article reads as if everyone involved is trying to give off reassuring signals, budg...
Selling Russia Mistrals: ‘A silly half-baked idea’
Russia is keen to buy a powerful amphibious warship from France to assert its geostrategic interests around its borders. If France accepts the offer, how will this impact on Russian-European relations, especially in light of Russia’s intentions in...
About the modernization of Russia and the impact of “soft power”
In his annual speech about the State of the Nation, a discourse characterized by media as hard, Dmitry Medvedev criticized in front of the Russian Federation Council “chronic archaism” to the country is heading. “In the XXI century,...
Inconvenient voices: Sakharov Prize 2009
Each year around the 10th of December, date when it was signed the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights", the European Parliament award the Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought: a recognition established to reward persons or organizations who dedi...
Gazprom’s uncertain outlook
by Katinka BaryschMany people in the EU tend to see Gazprom as a mighty giant that uses energy as a political tool on behalf of the Kremlin. They say that Russia has leverage because it controls 40 per cent of the EU’s gas imports. They fear that G...
In Memoriam: Yegor Gaidar
Yegor Gaidar died, aged only 53. Today I would like to pay tribute to the scientist Gaidar and remind you this analysis of the Soviet collapse.
Customs Union with Russia and Belarus Raises Doubts in Kazakhstan
Fielding questions from viewers on state-controlled television channels on November 13 Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev announced that on November 27 the leaders of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan would gather in Minsk to sign final a...
Medvedev Gave the World a Phoney
Hardly Russia counts on the signing of the new European Security Treaty. Its presentation is just a well-considered step, which… should split the views within the Euro-Atlantic area. READ MORE...
Russia Urged to Implement Pilot Judgment
Last week, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe urged the Russian Federation to adopt reforms to fully implement the pilot judgment in the case of Burdov (No. 2) v. Russia, on which I have reported earlier here. Although the Committee...
Chechnya book review
War in the Caucasus A small corner, very bloodyDec 10th 2009 From The Economist print editionChechnya may have been largely pacified, but it is far from being at peaceTowers of Stone: The Battle of Wills in Chechnya. By Wojciech Jagielski. Translated...
europe view: three cheers for Primakov
Europe.view The neighbour from hellDec 10th 2009 From Economist.comCack-handed Russian tactics are boosting NATO in eastern EuropeIN THE 1990s, when enlarging NATO to take in the ex-communist countries still seemed perilous and impractical, help came...
Russia Seeks To Sustain Its Energy Security
Moscow has reiterated pledges to improve Russian energy security by promising sizable investments to develop its hydrocarbon sector and power supply networks. However, the economic viability of such solutions appears to remain a matter of debate as M...
Russia’s Chinese neighbourhood
I recently spoke at the Sino-European forum co-organised by ECFR/Centre Asie and CICIR about the EU-Russia-China triangle. While thinking about the non-existent triangle I ran into the proceedings of another ‘strategic dialogue’ – between Russi...
Russian Participation Within Uzbekistani Oil And Gas Industry: Main Problems, Forecasts And Risks
Considering the rapprochement of Russia and Uzbekistan observed in the middle of the first decade of the ХХIst century, the number of Russian companies, and first of all Gazprom and LUKOIL, managed to become leaders within Uzbekistani oil and gas i...
The Kremlin – and snow
‘m now at the airport. As if to mock my words of yesterday evening, it snowed during the night and Moscow is now covered in a fine coating of snow – it suits the city. Our exhausted hosts laid on one last treat for us this morning –...
Bolshoi business
his evening we benefited yet further from our Russian hosts’ extraordinary hospitality, being taken to a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker by the Bolshoi. I’d like to write ‘at the Bolshoi’, but the true Bolshoi th...
Good news! Medvedev cracks a joke at EU-Russia summit
There is an amusing and rather revealing story doing the rounds in Brussels about a conversation that took place at last month’s European Union-Russia summit in Stockholm. In the course of a conversation with European Commission president José...
Russia’s Economy Slows In November
As doubts grow that in the post Dubai world Russia’s central bank will be able to sustain a great deal of momentum in its ongoing programme of interest rate reductions, we learn this week that the pace of expansion in Russia’s economy slo...
To the White House!
This lunchtime five of us – AICESIS President Antonio Marzano and Secretary General, Patrick Venturini, French Council President Jacques Dermagne, EESC REX President Filip Hamro-Drotz and me – headed off in a delegation to meet Vice-Prime...
A sprinkling of history
I was met at the airport on Wednesday by the second secretary of the Russian Permanent Representation to the European Union in Brussels. A gentleman with exquisite French and perfect manners, he also happily acted as tourist guide during our long dri...
Moscow Nights
This morning I got up early and went for a long run down the Tverskaya ul, across the Red Square, past the Kremlin and St Basil’s, over and along the river, and back again. This part of the city at night (it doesn’t get light in the morni...
OSCE Meeting Discusses Russian Security Plan
Foreign ministers from Europe's main security organization met in Athens to try to work out a response to Russia's proposal for a new Euro-Atlantic security pact. READ MORE...
OSCE Meeting Discusses Russian Security Plan
Foreign ministers from Europe's main security organization met in Athens to try to work out a response to Russia's proposal for a new Euro-Atlantic security pact. READ MORE...
Putin Says Ukraine Gas Deals Ensure Supplies
An agreement easing the terms under which Russia supplies gas to Ukraine, reached on 19 November between Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his Ukraine colleague Yulia Tymoshenko, appears to alleviate fears of another gas crisis this winter.&n...
Putin Says Ukraine Gas Deals Ensure Supplies
An agreement easing the terms under which Russia supplies gas to Ukraine, reached on 19 November between Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his Ukraine colleague Yulia Tymoshenko, appears to alleviate fears of another gas crisis this winter.&n...
Russia’s proposal for a new European security architecture: The wrong blueprint
WASHINGTON, DC — On the eve of this week’s Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and NATO Ministerial meetings, in addition to a NATO-Russia Council gathering, Russian officials unveiled their long-awaited proposal for a...
Moscow
flew into Moscow this afternoon and am writing this at midnight, Moscow time, in my hotel. (By the way, have they got a traffic problem! It took almost as long to get from the airport to the city as it did from Brussels to Moscow.) Anyway, I am here...
Moscow Backtracks From Strategy to Bypass Ukraine’s Gas Transit System
Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko declared on November 16 that the Nord Stream pipeline on the Baltic seabed would not be used for diverting gas volumes away from Ukraine’s transit pipelines to Europe. In effect, this statement acknowledge...
Russia’s vs China’s rise
President Medvedev published his draft proposal for a European Security Treaty. The driving idea behind the proposal is a desire to revise the European security order of post-Cold war Europe, as well as to start solidifying Russia’s long-desire...
“A conversation with Vladimir Putin Continued”
According to a release posted on the blog of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, on December 3, 2009 at 12:00 PM (Moscow time), the television networks Rossiya and Vesti and the radio stations Mayak and Radio Russia will feature a live broadcast...
Nevsky Express crash might be terror attack ?
Yesterday evening a terrible news to violate the beginning of the weekend of Russia. Prime Minister Putin has not had time to enjoy the successes visit to France. At least 26 people are reported dead, 95 more injured after an express train traveling...
Putin and energy diplomacy strategy
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was in Paris for a two-day working visit. Before the visit’s formal events got underway, he had breakfast with former French President Jacques Chirac, held restricted-attendance talks with French Prime Minister Francoi...
Will Russia Profit From The Single European Presidency?
Europe is almost a single state now, not only with common finances, common borders and common economic space but also with one president and one foreign minister. READ MORE...
Are Russia’s Consumers Getting “Carried Away” With Themselves?
“Cutting rates by 50 basis points here and there is not going really diminish the appeal of the ruble,” said Manik Narain, an emerging markets strategist at Standard Chartered Bank Plc in London. “In terms of nominal interest rates Russia (at 9...
Time to engage Russia? A reply
In a recent article, Riccardo Alcaro and Emiliano Alessandri argued that Europeans should re-engage with Russia. In a reply, James Rogers suggests that we must first jettison outdated Cold War thinking, and acquaint ourselves with new realities, not...
The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pipeline
Rügen is best known as a popular German tourist destination. But now the Baltic Sea island has taken on a new role as staging point for an energy project that is as ambitious as it is controversial: the Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russia to Ge...
Russia Makes Surprise CO2 Pledge At Summit
Russia made a surprise pledge to cut back on CO2 emissions at a summit with the EU in Sweden on Wednesday (18 November). Russian diplomats said the country is ready to cut emissions by 20 to 25 percent below 1990s levels by 2020, up from a previous c...
Russia Makes Surprise CO2 Pledge At Summit
Russia made a surprise pledge to cut back on CO2 emissions at a summit with the EU in Sweden on Wednesday (18 November). Russian diplomats said the country is ready to cut emissions by 20 to 25 percent below 1990s levels by 2020, up from a previous c...
Results from the EU-Russia Summit
So what are the particular results of the last EU-Russia summit? First, the parties signed financing agreements for five cross-border co-operation programmes (CBC) under the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI). Second, Russia cla...
Summit UE – Russia / Stockholm 2009
Cooperation, in terms of the Treaty of Lisbon, is the central theme of Russia-EU Summit, said the Russian president to meeting in Stockholm. Dmitry Medvedev said that despite “asperities”, Moscow and Brussels have many spheres in which...
A Promising Land: Russian State Companies Expect Major Discoveries In Central Asia
Gazprom and Rosneft are accelerating exploration efforts in Central Asian onshore projects. Their experience may show that interesting opportunities exist away from the Caspian Sea oil and gas fields, where most of the business focuses on. READ...
Analyst: Russia Pushing US Out Of Europe
US President Barack Obama "does not care very much" about security in Europe, Edward Lucas, who has been The Economist's Eastern Europe correspondent for more than 20 years, told EurActiv Slovakia in an interview. READ MORE...
Analyst: Russia Pushing US Out Of Europe
US President Barack Obama "does not care very much" about security in Europe, Edward Lucas, who has been The Economist's Eastern Europe correspondent for more than 20 years, told EurActiv Slovakia in an interview. READ MORE...
Russia – a Challenge for the High Representative
Wednesday´s EU-Russia Summit will be the last major foreign policy event under the Nice Treaty. On 1 December, the new President of the Council and the new High Representative will assume their posts. Russia will be one of their main chal...
Cheerful Weekend Reading
In a fit of timeliness, I have read the first volume of the report by the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Conflict in Georgia (IIFFMCG), colloquially known as the Tagliavini report. The report drew attention when it was publishe...
Gazprom In Europe: Russian Government Plans To Share Part Of Yamal Gas Resources
The Russian government plans to share bits of the giant Yamal prize with international companies. However, rather than a sign of liberalism, this represents an attempt to address the fundamental challenges that the expanding Gazprom is facing in Euro...
Brave Medvedev hits out at Russians who excuse Stalin
October 30 saw one of the most important moments so far of Dmitry Medvedev’s presidency in Russia. On a video blog posted on the presidential website, he squarely addressed the issue of the mass repressions carried out under Josef Stalin, the...
Vice-President US, Joe Biden – “We believe that a better relationship with Russia is the benefit of all”
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden was on tour in Poland, Czech Republic and Romania, between 20-24 October 2009. Regarding the visits to Poland and the Czech Republic, analysts Stratfor states defining its relations with the United States, where Obama ad...
From Russia With Love: Vaclav Klaus the darling of Russia's media
KGB asset Klaus is in demand among his old friends from story fromPresseurop on Klaus's state visit to Russia last week. He also promised his pay masters that he will never sign the Lisbon Treaty on the visit.Time to impeach the old traitor to his Pr...
The Mission Of Kaliningrad Is In European Presence Of Russia
Lithuania should be a priority within interrelations of the Parliament and the Administration of Kaliningrad region, as considers the Head of Foundation “Regional Policy” Solomon Ginzburg. He thinks that the Administration of Kaliningrad...
How Russian is it?
I see in the EU Observer that Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt is seen “as too young by some EU officials” with respect to the job as the new EU “Foreign Minister.” The guy is 60. He is also considered as too “anti-Ru...
Stark truths of Russia’s demographic crisis exposed in UN report
Everyone interested in modern Russia should read a report out this week on the nation’s deepening demographic crisis. It’s published by the United Nations Development Programme, but it’s written by a team of Russian academic exper...
Andrey Fedorov: “Lukashenko Knows Russia’s Pressure Points Very Well”
Executive director of National informational centre of Russia Andrey Fedorov told his opinion about development of Belarusian-Russian interrelations. READ MORE...
Putin's 'Polish Syndrome'
Ten years of absolute power and 10 years of unlimited sycophancy have not failed to leave their mark on Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. He has completely lost the ability to listen to others or to hear himself. READ MORE...
Obama Throws the Russians a Bone
In a major foreign policy move, President Obama announced today he is abandoning the Bush Administration's missile defence system plan for Eastern Europe. The plan, which would have seen long-range missiles installed in Poland and a radar system in t...
Only a coincidence? US gives up missile defense while Moscow performs U-turn on Iran
Now it is official. As the Guardian reports: Barack Obama has abandoned the controversial Pentagon plan to build a missile defence system in Europe. And the story continues with first reactions: The move has prompted angry accusations of betrayal fro...
Just bad timing
The big news of the day is that that United States abandoned its plans for establishing a missile defense shield in Europe. The change was expected but the timing was not. Obama is facing a lot of criticism at home for moving to the left, especially...
Iran (or Europe?) Downgraded
U.S. to Shelve Nuclear-Missile Shield The White House will shelve Bush administration plans to build...
Russia and Ukraine in Intensifying Standoff
A year after its war with Georgia, Russia is engaging in an increasingly hostile standoff with another pro-Western neighbor, Ukraine. READ MORE...
Mateusz Piskorski: Poland and Russia Are Against Chauvinism: the Chance For Strategic Partnership?
The visit of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to Poland is the most significant event in the foreign policy of Poland in 2009. The Government of Donald Tusk has a serious task to normalize Polish-Russian relations, which has lately occurred to b...
