I have taken my time preparing a commentary on Putin’s speech to the Plenary Session of the St. Petersburg Economic Forum last Friday, and I am well satisfied that this was the right decision. Others have written about the content and delivery of the speech....
As noted in my essay a couple of days ago, I returned home to Brussels from St. Petersburg, in two steps: by bus to Tallinn, followed by a forty-eight hour stay there before resuming my trip by plane. For reasons unknown, the only bus service to Tallinn departs...
It has been my rule not to join the vast majority of my fellow political commentators at the scrimmage line in sterile debates of the one subject of the day, week, month that has attracted their full attention. Their debates are sterile because they ignore all but a...
In Volume II of my Memoirs of a Russianist: Russia in the Roaring 1990s, the diary entries which constitute three quarters of the book describe in considerable detail the musical and literary life of the country that I saw firsthand and in which I participated as...
In my report on “Day Sixteen” of the Ukraine-Russia war a couple of days ago, I provided a brief summary of the opening segment of the 9 March edition of the Russian political talk show “Evening with Vladimir Solovyov.” I directed special attention to the words of...
In recent days, in what is surely a coordinated action by NATO and European authorities acting hand in glove, Russian news broadcasters have been taken off servers in Europe and effectively made inaccessible to the entire European public. This modern day...
In my essay a couple of days ago about “Bunny Rabbits,” I was talking about the political class in Ukraine, and in particular, about the radical nationalists, call them “neo-Nazis,” call them “terrorists,” who took power in February 2014...
“Are you aware that #IstandwithRussia and #IstandwithPutin are among the top tending hashtags in India?”The observation above was written to me by a professional Indian journalist in the employ of a leading worldwide news provider. This insight has...
What I am about to say should be self-evident to anyone following closely the move of Russian forces into Ukraine and having a recollection of what the same Russian general command did in Crimea and then did again in their Syrian campaign. Regrettably, Western...
This was a comment posted on my website this morning from a reader of my last essay “Meet the new Proactive Russia” posted on 16 February, though in light of the latest developments it now seems ages ago. Yes, indeed, Mr. Putin yesterday moved on from the stalled...
