The 20-year-old ban on regional-level political parties, put in place when President Vladimir Putin came to power in 2001, actually turned Russian regions into political “clones” of one another (Region.Expert, September 3)....
The Ukrainian journalist who specializes on religious and ethnic questions presents a damning portrait of what the Russian government has been doing to the peoples of the North and Far East, thereby extending Ukrainian concern from the...
For decades, Vladimir Putin has been working diligently on his international image. He believes it is not enough to be the president of the largest country in the world. Today, he wants to lead the entire post-Soviet space, and presents...
“Historically,” Khakimov says, “the Turkic peoples formed on the territory of the Turkic khanate … extending from the Caspian to the Danube.” They were “close in culture and language,” and...
That effort was described by Prague-based commentator Vadim Sidorov as an effort to erect a new “iron curtain” between the three Finno-Ugric peoples who have independent statehood and those living within the Russian...
In a Guildhall commentary, he suggests that these two processes, in turn, are connected with “the strengthening of ‘the criminal structure called ‘the Russian Federation’ and the final destruction of the...
Alex Bustos, a Catalan journalist who has made a visit to Russia, points out that “in the very center of Eurasia is located the land of the Udmurts. Their motherland, far from the sea and borders with other countries, at present is...
Some people view what the Russian authorities are doing as solicitous of ethnic differences, says Kuznetsova, the Estonian and Hungarian-trained linguist from Ioshkar-Ola; but in fact, it is a strategy intended to destroy rather than...
Ukraine has entered the runup to the local elections set for 25 October 2020, and campaigns are in full swing. Despite relatively high support on the national scale — close to 29% — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s...
Facing a situation in which there is growing popular discontent and increasing dysfunction in institutions, Vladimir Putin has tried to save the situation by pushing through amendments to the constitution. But just as constitutional...
First stereotype: Ukrainians are very poor Some Europeans viewed Ukraine as extremely poor. Many Ukrainian refugees were surprised to learn that. “They perceived us almost like we are cave people who do not know and have not seen...