MOSCOW — The drastic military reform plans articulated by Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov in mid-October are meeting with a sweeping opposition in the armed forces. The planned cuts among officers more than twofold — from 315,000 to 150,000 — are a matter of grave concern among mid-ranking officers that are …
?he upper house of the Russian parliament will most likely pass constitutional amendments tomorrow, November 26, (article in Russian) paving the way for Vladimir Putin to return to supreme power in the Kremlin President Dmitry Medvedev’s announcement last week that he may change the Russian Constitution to extend the presidential term …
MOSCOW — The financial turmoil in Russia might not be all-embracing yet, but some of its features suggest its gloomy prospects. Big business’ lack of confidence in national economy is what primarily strikes the eye. Speaking at a Cabinet meeting last week, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin unveiled scandalous information concerning …
European Union ministers are pressuring Poland and Lithuania to endorse the EU’s business-as-usual approach toward Russia, despite the fact that Russia remains in violation of the EU-negotiated truce over the Russian-Georgian war. The EU apparently wants to have Poland and Lithuania on board for this scurrilous betrayal, so that it …
MOSCOW — The Russian elite are clearly unenthusiastic about Barack Obama’s election to the presidency. Moscow believes Obama has adopted a stance similar to the incumbent administration’s on most of the thorny issues that are dividing the United States and Russia — missile defenses in Eastern Europe, NATO enlargement, Russia-Georgia …
It will come as no surprise that Barack Obama’s emphatic victory has been warmly greeted in the United Kingdom and across Europe. Newspapers are covered with proclamations of a history-changing moment for the United States. The record turnout, particularly among groups that previously felt they belonged only on the margins of …
The ultimate motivation is still unclear, but it appears as though Russia test-fired as many as four intercontinental ballistic missiles this weekend. First on Saturday, President Dmitri Medvedev watched the launch of a Sineva intercontinental missile from a submarine in the Arctic Barents Sea that hit a virtual target near …
TBILISI — Speaking on a special panel this morning, jointly hosted by AmCham Georgia and the think tank New Economic School, former Estonian Prime Minister Mart Laar described Georgia as “a victim of success.” Tbilisi’s rapid economic liberalization and determination to integrate into the Euro-Atlantic community through NATO and the …
TBILISI — Arriving in this city and driving down George W. Bush Street, you’d be hard pushed to identify Georgia as a country that recently underwent a short but brutal war. Of course the war never reached Tbilisi, but ordinary Georgians are seemingly untouched by Russia’s illegal and immoral invasion …
