The response of much western commentary to the Russia China agreements has been scepticism that they can ever burgeon into an outright partnership because of the supposedly long history of mutual suspicion and hostility between the two countries. The Economist for example refers to the two countries as “frenemies”. To see whether these claims are
I am currently in St. Petersburg where I have attended the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. Before saying anything further I wish to thank Peter Lavelle of RT TV for very kindly and very generously arranging my invitation to the Forum. At the Forum I attended three roundtables: (1) On the InfoWars brilliantly hosted and
In a short piece I wrote on 11th April 2014 on my Facebook page under the the title “More evidence of the Ukrainian security forces’ refusal to carry out Kiev’s orders” I said: “A report I read on Novosti citing an anonymous but apparently senior source in Kiev suggested that the force deployed today in
Russia’s Channel Odessa has done a real piece of investigative journalism on the Odessa massacre. It appears to show that the street fighting in Odessa that preceded the massacre bore the hallmarks of a carefully staged provocation in which sections of the police and of the local authorities were actively involved. It shows that the
The US, Kiev, their EU allies and their media echo chamber are up to their invariable game of rewriting last week’s Geneva Statement to mean not what it says but what they want it to say. To repeat the Geneva Statement contains NO time line (see my previous post where I discussed what the Geneva
The media refers to the document that emerged out of today’s four party talks as an “agreement”. This is not strictly correct. The text of the document is here: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/17/ukraine-diplomats-meet-in-geneva-in-bid-to-ease-crisis-live-coverage?view=desktop#block-5350089ce4b056a9012cda6f As its text makes clear what this document is in reality is not an an agreement to settle the Ukrainian crisis or even an outline
We do not have anywhere near complete information about what happened at the Lavrov Kerry meeting on Sunday. That in itself is a good sign. It almost certainly means that with the Crimean issue out of the way (and with the western powers having tacitly admitted that the Crimea is now part of Russia) real negotiations
Here is a radio discussion on VoR I did on Sunday with Amos Gelb and Robert Bridge on the western media’s coverage of the Sochi Olympics. http://voiceofrussia.com/uk/news/2014_02_17/Western-media-coverage-of-Sochi-The-worst-form-of-poor-sportsmanship-9458/ Please note that the written summary provided gives only a fraction of the discussion. Anyone wanting to follow the whole discussion will need to listen to it. Please
A discussion on Crosstalk with Peter Lavelle in which I appeared discussing the Nuland leak. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLHXpCRPo-k I found some of the comments made by Taras Kuzio frankly surreal but judging from what I read on Kyiv Post he is pretty mainstream in Ukrainian opposition terms. Two weeks earlier in an interview on RT I said
Do the opposition leaders retain control over the Maidan? Would it be wise for Yanukovych to finally crack down? What are Western leaders trying to accomplish by meeting the opposition leaders in Munich?
Repost of Alexander Mercouris’ comments at Mark Chapman’s blog and The Russia Debate forum. The original compilation is posted at Mercouris’ blog. PS. Originally, this space hosted just one of Mercouris’ comments. Now that he has taken the trouble to gather up his output, the least I could do is update it and try to ensure
The Western narrative on the Navalny case is that it was a selective and political prosecution on trumped up charges. I think that to a significant (but NOT full) extent that this interpretation is basically correct. So given the paucity of convincing counter-narratives, I was extremely pleased to see that Alexander Mercouris, a British lawyer who
The Russian economy is steadily converging on stagnation in the past few months. For real, this time. Businesses are becoming more pessimistic, and industrial production in the first two months of this year is 1.5% lower than for the corresponding period last year. What explains this? Alexander Mercouris explains: Might this not be a good
As a Greek with contacts in Cyprus, his opinion is one of the most valuable ones out there. Here it is: We have now the latest bailout plan and contrary to the spin in parts of the western media it is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from the plan we saw last week. What was utterly outrageous about
When I said this post would be “the last post” on the matter, I meant posts written by myself. 🙂 Alexander Mercouris’ was too good to pass up, so it is reprinted here: Any discussion of Chavez must explain why he was (to his detractors) such a terrible man. He was a terrible man because