Putin’s ‘hybrid peace’ more threatening to Ukraine than his ‘hybrid war,’ Portnikov says
Vladimir Putin’s rhetoric about Ukraine has changed in order to curry favor with Russians in advance of the presidential poll, but his approach on the ground has not changed, laying a potential trap for…
Edward Lucas: The repressive state
How many political prisoners languish in Russia’s jails and penal colonies? The short answer is that nobody knows. Harassment makes it hard for human rights organizations to track these cases.
Edward Lucas: Russian political theater
Russia is having a presidential election this year. Right? Wrong. In fact, the Kremlin is staging a play about an election, rather than a real contest with real voters, real candidates, real competition and real doubt about the outcome.
Putin’s Russia now ‘an empire of lies,’ not ‘an evil empire,’ Pastukhov says
At the everyday level, Vladimir Pastukhov says, it is unlikely that Russians lie more than people in other countries do; but in the public sphere, the lie is not criticized but rather encouraged,” making it…
Russia can only affect Lithuanian society with internal problems – analyst
The Kremlin can only have an effect on Lithuania's society, if it is shaken by internal problems, says Lilia Shevtsova, political scientist and analyst at the international policy institute Chatham House.
Claire Wardle: Disinformation gets worse
“We’re in a terrifying moment where our global information streams are polluted with a dizzying array of mis- and disinformation.
Russia is practicing a form of geopolitical guerilla war against the West
What does Russia want? How should the Russian campaign against the West be understood? Mark Galleotti participated via skype in a debate organized in Bucharest by ESGA (Experts for Security and Global Affairs…
The Daily Vertical: Russia’s Worst-Kept Secret (Transcript)
Well, it looks like TASS just spilled the beans. Russia's state news agency has apparently just revealed one of the Kremlin's most closely held secrets.
Putin’s meddling in US elections backfiring on his own allies at home and on...
The Kremlin’s effort to affect the outcome of the 2016 US presidential elections has provoked one consequence Moscow has long wanted – the demoralization of the American elite – but it is having other less…
Moscow Can’t Close Ukrainian Language Schools in Russia Because There aren’t Any
A major reason that Moscow has to struggle to find symmetrical responses to anything other countries do is because it lacks many of the institutions that they have but that Russia does not, ranging from media environments open to almost anyone to schools in the languages of many minorities.