Window On Eurasia: Putin ‘Liquidated’ Politics In Russia but Medvedev Could Force Its Return, Dugin Says
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posted by eagle on January, 2010 as ANALYSIS / OPINION
Paul Goble
Vienna, January 26 – During his presidency, Moscow’s leading Eurasianist commentator says, Vladimir Putin “liquidated” politics, something that met the needs of both the Russian elite and theRussian masses. But if Dmitry Medvedev seeks to challenge him in 2012, he will have to revive politics, something with potentially serious and negative consequences for the country.
In the current issue of “Odnako,” Aleksandr Dugin says that “at the present time, there is no politics in Russia” because “no one needs it,” neither the elite which finds it easier to pursue its interests and avoid responsibility nor the masses who are glad to have escaped the overly politicized 1990s (www.odnakoj.ru/magazine/main_theme/esli_zavtra_vesna/#comments).
Not only is the situation of “no politics – no neuroses” easier for the Russian people to live with, Dugin continues, but they also liked “living under Putin” who “liquidated” politics for his own purposes because “the Russian masses do ...
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Window On Eurasia: 20,000 Soldiers -- Many Armed -- Now AWOL From Russian Army
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posted by eagle on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
Paul Goble
Vienna, January 25 – Some 20,000 soldiers, divided almost equally between draftees and those on contract, are currently being sought by the Russian military and militia for desertion, an especially disturbing figure both because it highlights the continued existence of dedovshchina in Russian forces and because many of those now AWOL have taken their weapons with them.
That number, Aleksandr Stepanov writes in today’s “Versiya,” likely understates the problem because the provisions of Russian military law and the desire of commanders not to harm their own reputations both allow the Russian powers that be to understate the numbers of both deserters and those taking arms with them (versia.ru/articles/2010/jan/25/dezertirstvo).
Valentina Malnikova, the secretary of the Union of Committees of Soldiers Mothers, says that the major cause for this phenomenon is the continued mistreatment of soldiers, up to and including the use of torture by fellow soldiers, known as “dedovshchina” in Russian, ...
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Russia Profile: Is Putin Sabotaging Medvedev's Initiatives?
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posted by circassiankama on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
January 22, 2010
Russia Profile Weekly Experts Panel: Is Putin Sabotaging Medvedev’s Initiatives?
Introduced by Vladimir Frolov
Russia Profile
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Contributors: Vladimir Belaeff, Stephen Blank, Ethan Burger, Eugene Kolesnikov, Alexandre Strokanov
It has recently been suggested that Prime Minister Vladimir
Putin acts as the biggest spoiler of President Dmitry Medvedev’s
foreign policy initiatives (see David Kramer, “Putin is Medvedev’s
Biggest Spoiler”, Moscow Times, January 13, 2010). Indeed, as David
Kramer points out, the case could be made that Putin, for reasons
better known to him, regularly interferes at key junctures to upset or
altogether derail Medvedev’s key foreign policy initiatives. Is this
assessment fair? Would this be an indication of Putin’s continued
strong interest in seeking another presidential term in 2012? Where
does the buck stop in Moscow on international issues?
Kramer writes that last June “Putin stunned Medvedev and leaders in the
West by announcing ... |
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KC: French Political Scientist Warns Of Danger Coming From Russia
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posted by eagle on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
French political scientist warns of danger coming from RussiaPublication time: Today at 13:35 Djokhar time
A prominent French political scientist, Françoise Thom, professor of history at the Sorbonne University, warned of the danger coming from Russia that became even more aggressive today. Instead of taking advantage of crisis and to destroy Russia as a single country, the naive West wishes to have business with Moscow and does not realize that flirt and appeasement of this criminal country bring disaster to humanity in the future. Françoise Thom writes: "Politicians and statesmen should differ between short-term interests and challenges of the future. The economic and financial crisis in which we have plunged seems to have greatly reduced the ability of our leaders for long-term thinking and evaluation of the consequences of their decisions. The French decision to sell this year a Mistral class helicopter carrier to Russia is a striking example of it. Is it wise to arm a country that intervenes into internal affairs of neighboring Georgia and does not ...
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Independent: Nothing But The Truth, By Anna Politkovskaya Trans Arch Tait
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posted by eagle on as ANALYSIS / OPINION
Nothing But The Truth, By Anna Politkovskaya trans Arch TaitReviewed by Mary Dejevsky
Friday, 22 January 2010 Witness, maverick, dissident and finally victim: Russian reporter and campaigner Anna Politkovskaya
Anna Politkovskaya was gunned down in the stairwell of her Moscow flat on 7 October 2006. Her murder shocked, but did not entirely surprise, those who had followed her reporting and recent developments in Russia. It called forth a multitude of tributes from around the world in the spirit of the epigraph to this volume, which describes her as the "honour and conscience of Russia". It also prompted one of the most notoriously ill-judged comments ever uttered by President Vladimir Putin. She was, he said, a full three days after her death, someone whose influence on political life in Russia was "minimal". While Putin's successor at the Kremlin has mastered more delicacy and decorum when speaking of the deceased – adversaries included – Russia's then leader was not entirely wrong. And more's the pity. As a campaigning journalist, Politkovskaya was admired, ...
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