I am basically at the stage where I find reading paper books to be almost physically painful. I can do it if I have to but given the choice I’d much rather do in my tablet’s Kindle app or even as a PDF file. I’d positively hate to be in an non-cyberpunk apocalypse by now. Apart
This is the first post in a new series that I intend to do in 1-2 week intervals every Friday. Just like Patrick Armstrong does with his RF Sitreps on Russia Insider, these sitreps are intended to cover both developments in the ongoing War in the Donbass. Assassination of Alexey Mozgovoy On May 23, the cortege of Mozgovoy,
In the latest news from the ongoing comedy skit that is Ukrainian politics, we learn that Mikheil Saakashvili has been appointed governor of Odessa oblast. Who is Saakashvili? The son of Soviet apparatchiks with ties to the diplomatic service, which was dominated by Georgians in the late USSR, this onetime university dropout enjoyed a great deal of
The Guardian writes: Vadim Pokrovsky, head of the federal Aids centre in Moscow, predicted this month that at least two million Russians are likely to be officially registered as HIV-positive within five years, and a total of three million will have the virus. All pretty worrying, except when we stop to consider that he also
A few months ago, I wrote the following: This is a series of polls that took place in France in 1945, 1994, and 2004, respectively, asking which nation was most responsible for the defeat of Germany. Right after France’s liberation, with American and British soldiers walking the streets, a solid majority of 57% nonetheless believed that
Xi Jinping (pictured right, meeting the Patriarch Kirill) penned an op-ed in a Russian newspaper on May 6th in which, in stark contrast to the typical Western bile and hostility, he acknowledges the role of the Soviet Union in defeating Nazism and warns off against attempts to revise that outcome, be it on paper or in real
The results for all 650 constituencies in, time to make some brief observations. (1) Almost everyone was wrong (including myself). It is 1992 all over again, with opinion polls massively understating Conservative support. (2) Regionally, the story was essentially one of Conservative and SNP triumph in England and Scotland, respectively. Miliband (Labour), Clegg (LibDem), and
Someone stole $1 billion from Moldova. In a series of murky deals last November, the top three banks in Moldova – one of them state-owned – loaned out vast sums of cash to unknown recipients. As the article points out, it is one eighth of Moldova’s GDP. It is also: About $350 per citizen. Four months
She was a member of Aidar, which is known for its brutality and ill-discipline even relative to the other Ukrainian Neo-Nazi volunteer batallions. Though she wasn’t seen much at the front, as there were more important matters to be seen to in the rest of Ukraine, such as corporate raids on “separatist” companies in her native Vinnitsya. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaJwx9Jhi1k She
The Victory Parade on May 9th in Moscow to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War 2 will be accompanied by the display of an impressive amount of new military hardware. The centerpiece will be the Armata combat chassis, which will form the basis not just for what is likely to be the
Always interesting to read people’s impressions of their visits to Russia, especially as I haven’t been there myself for a few years now. Here is Peter Frost on this. Driving into the city of Voronezh from the airport, I could see entirely new neighborhoods, supermarkets, office buildings, and the like. In 2003, there was only one
With data for the first three months of 2015 out, it is now tentatively possible to make out some hints of what Russia’s demographic developments are going to be like this year. In short, it’s not looking very good. But not catastrophic, either. The birth rate has remained essentially stable, declining by 0.8% relative to the
In Western popular culture, and to be honest most of the rest of the world, Kazakhstan is most commonly associated with Borat and his putative homeland of slapstick provincial troglodytes. And following Nursultan Nazarbayev’s 98% win in the recent elections, and his reaction to it… I apologize if these numbers are unacceptable for the super democratic