Russia Archive

Despite all the uproar generated by President Barack Obama’s open-mike comments to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at the nuclear summit in Seoul, no one should be shocked that election-year calculations play a major role in international politics. It is perfectly understandable that, in gearing up for what will be a tough and challenging re-election campaign, Obama would prefer not to have to deal with crises now if they can be postponed until after the ballots have been cast. This same logic has driven efforts to persuade Israel not to launch a strike on Iran, which might have immediate and drastic […]

After months of aggressive debates over the Middle East, the U.N. Security Council is starting to calm down. Last week the council released a statement supporting Kofi Annan’s peace plan for Syria — which calls for a U.N.-supervised cease-fire and an “inclusive Syrian-led political process” — signaling the change of mood. The Western powers reached consensus with Russia and China on the text, toning down and cutting controversial passages, after Moscow called for daily cease-fires to let humanitarian aid reach suffering Syrians. The contrast with the mood at the United Nations in February, when the Chinese and Russians vetoed a […]

In the run-up to Russia’s March 4 presidential election, with opposition forces staging massive protests, Vladimir Putin sharply escalated the intensity of his anti-American and anti-Western rhetoric. His accusations of U.S. interference in Russian affairs and portrayal of America as an enemy of Russia brought back memories of the Cold War, raising the specter that Moscow would become an unmovable obstacle in the path of many of Washington’s foreign policy objectives. The concern carried particular weight at a time when the U.S. and its allies are trying to muster a united front to stop Iran’s nuclear program and to bring […]

For the past few years, the Russian government has made the unprecedented decision to purchase expensive Western military equipment, in part to fill gaps in Russian defense capabilities, but also to use the threat of foreign competition to induce Russia’s military industrial complex to modernize its means of production and contain its costs. The most well-known such purchase was the signing in June 2011 of a $1.7 billion contract to buy two French-built Mistral class amphibious assault ships for the Russian navy, with the option to negotiate the purchase of two additional Mistral class ships that would be manufactured in […]

For more than three years, China has been gradually implementing a strategic plan to internationalize its currency, the yuan, with a central element of this strategy being to increase the yuan’s role in China’s cross-border trade settlement. To date, these efforts have been strikingly effective, as the “people’s currency” was used to settle nearly 10 percent of China’s international trade in 2011, up from essentially zero in 2009. Last week, it was reported that China is poised to take another significant step in promoting the yuan’s use in global trade settlement by extending yuan-denominated loans to the other BRICS nations: […]

Aleksandr Z. Ankvab, the president of the Russian-backed breakaway Georgian province of Abkhazia, survived an assassination attempt last month. In an email interview, Svante Cornell, the research director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and Silk Road Studies Program, discussed Russian influence and political stability in the South Caucasus. WPR: How effective has Russia been at influencing policy and public opinion in Abkhazia and South Ossetia? Svante Cornell: Moscow has been relatively ineffective in both territories. In Abkhazia, Russia has repeatedly failed to handle the independent streak of the territory’s leaders, who see their relationship with Russia as important, but certainly […]

Many commentators are predicting that with Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency in Russia, the improvement in relations between Moscow and Washington that occurred under the stewardship of U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will come to an end. Some are even forecasting a return to a more confrontational period in U.S.-Russia relations, given Putin’s history of negative comments about the United States. After all, last August, the then-Russian prime minister and now president-elect castigated Americans for “living like parasites off the global economy.” And in a pre-election essay published in Moskovskiye Novosti last month, Putin lambasted […]

In January, Bulgaria banned hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, after nationwide protests against the natural gas extraction method. In an email interview, Tomasz Daborowski, an analyst in the Central European department at the Center for Eastern Studies in Warsaw, discussed Bulgaria’s energy security. WPR: What is the current size and scope of Bulgaria’s energy sector, and what are its estimated reserves? Tomasz Daborowski: The energy sector in Bulgaria is relatively small in global terms but quite considerable compared to other Bulgarian industries and to other energy sectors in Southeastern Europe. The power sector is the most important: The country has one […]

This weekend’s election in Russia has unsurprisingly returned Vladimir Putin to the country’s presidency. In contrast to the preordained outcome of the Russian voting, the winner of this November’s U.S. presidential election is not yet known. But whoever occupies the White House in 2013 will need to consider the bilateral arms control relationship with Russia in coming years. And although the implementation of the New START agreement is going well, there are sharp differences in Washington and Moscow over where to go next. Moscow’s main concerns focus on U.S. missile defense and U.S. superiority in conventional forces. Both conditions work […]

The veto by Russia and China in February of a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down has stalled efforts by the U.S., its European allies and the Arab League to halt the bloody crackdown in Syria through U.N. action. Though the U.S. is currently drafting a new U.N. resolution, calls by some observers to arm the Syrian resistance have now been echoed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf Cooperation Council states eager to see the pro-Iranian Assad regime replaced by a Sunni-dominated government. Meanwhile, French President Nicolas Sarkozy joined the ranks of […]

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin thanked supporters at a rally near the Kremlin, as vote counts began to confirm his victory in the presidential poll. World News Videos by NewsLook

Reindeer breeders and pensioners in Russia’s far North will likely support Putin in presidential election, with few counting on change. World News Videos by NewsLook