Tag Archives: ukraine

NY Dispatches: voting rights for Donbas residents?

Yesterday it was reported that the State Duma is considering a bill that would make it possible for the residents of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics – separatist territories in Eastern Ukraine under de facto Russian control – … Continue reading

Posted in Dispatches, Elections | Tagged , , , , | 0 Comments

Russia’s options in Belarus

“I need to contact Putin,” said Alexander Lukashenko, “Belarus’s former president” – as Lithuania’s minister of foreign affairs called him recently – after almost a week of unrelenting and ever-growing protests and strikes against the falsification of a presidential election … Continue reading

Posted in Elections, Policies | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 0 Comments

NY Dispatches: Pompeo in Belarus

Last week US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Minsk amidst an ongoing dispute between Belarus and Russia over the price of oil following the “tax maneuver”, a revamp of Russia’s system of taxing oil extraction and exports, which Belarusian … Continue reading

Posted in Dispatches, Policies | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 0 Comments

NY Dispatches: What we know and what we don’t

The past two weeks have seen seemingly transformative political developments happen at a breathtaking speed in Russia. Vladimir Putin proposed a series of constitutional reforms. In a little more than a week those reforms were spelled out in a draft … Continue reading

Posted in Dispatches, Elections | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 0 Comments

Shoigu’s Game

One of the underreported stories of the past years in the Western media was how Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu became one of the most visible, most popular and strongest figures in Russian politics. This is perhaps because Shoigu has … Continue reading

Posted in Kremlinology | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 0 Comments

Looking farther in the near-abroad

One of the most amazing stories coming out of Russia this year was, in fact, coming out of somewhere else: Armenia. In April, Serzh Sargsyan, president in 2008-18, attempted to continue ruling the country from the newly empowered position of … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 0 Comments

Putin’s endgame? Part 2: the problem of institutions

In the second part of No Yardstick’s series on the issues shaping Vladimir Putin’s fourth presidential term, we now look at the composition of the new Russian government, formed in May, and through it, the problem of institutions. The new … Continue reading

Posted in Kremlinology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 0 Comments