Mr Shoigu is much more than Russia’s latest defence minister. At 60, three years younger than Mr Putin, he is the longest-serving member of the Russian government; his tenure stretches back to 1990, before the collapse of the Soviet Union, when Mr Putin was still toiling in obscurity in the St Petersburg mayor’s office. He made his name at the Ministry of Emergency Situations (MChS), a semi-militarised rescue service with a wide remit that he built himself and led for nearly 22 years.
Senate Passes $700 Billion Pentagon Bill, More Money Than Trump Sought (NY Times)
It authorizes $500 million to provide security assistance, including weapons, to Ukraine; $100 million to help Balkan nations “deter Russian aggression”…
Russian plane black boxes point to ‘attack’
Paris (AFP) – Black box data from the Russian plane that crashed in Egypt last week indicate it was bombed, sources said, ahead of a first update Saturday from the Egyptian-led probe into the disaster.
The Nation’s Patrick Lawrence Interviews Author and Journalist Stephen Kinzer
In this wide ranging interview, Stephen Kinzer wonders, “How would we react if the Russians had military maneuvers in Tijuana, or the Chinese opened a base in Montreal?…under international law and the principles of Westphalian independence, they have every right to do that. But in reality we would never tolerate that.
Who Were the Bolsheviks and Why They Matter Today…
Thom Hartmann talks with Professor Stephen Cohen, Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies & Politics at NYU and Princeton. Professor Cohen’s books, Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution and, Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives, which examines the origins of the “New Cold War.” For the podcast, click below.
Of Possible Interest: Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing Tuesday 10am
The SFRC will hold nomination hearings for former Utah governor Jon M. Huntsman to be US Ambassador to the Russian Federation and for Center for European Policy Analysis CEO A. Wess Mitchell to be the Assistant Secretary Of State for European And Eurasian Affairs.
Is an Assad victory in Syria the lesser of two evils?
Dylan Royce, a Russian concentrator at the Elliott School of International Affairs at The George Washington University, writes that “If Syria turns into Russia’s new Afghanistan, it could also become a proxy war between Russia and the U.S., with all its grave implications. The rebels Washington supports will accomplish little more than helping the radicals into power…Syria might fall under the rule of those who will cause the country, its region, and the West far more harm than the victory of Syrian President Bashar Assad (and, thus, his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin) ever could have.
It is therefore time to accept that the U.S. has run out of moves in Syria.”
James Carden: The Latest Push to Arm Ukraine
Then as now, arguments for arming Ukraine are based on disingenuous interpretations of past agreements and an equally reckless disregard for the present circumstances.
Following municipal elections, denial of Ukraine’s political divisions helps no one
No one in their right mind, of course, would claim that a writer who tried to analyze the economic, social, and political differences between New York and Texas was somehow engaged in “anti-American propaganda,” or an attempt to prove that the United States is a “fictitious nation.” But when it comes to Ukraine, the current government and its supporters are rabid in attacking anyone who points out that Ukraine is not united in its desire to fulsomely embrace the European Union.
Flashback: David Rieff on The False Dawn of Civil Society (The Nation, 2/4/99)
When it is said that civil society must be recognized as a new force in international politics, what is meant is a certain kind of civil society–in other words, a certain kind of political movement. But why should this be the case?
On ‘Crackpot Realism’ and Russia
…the relentless progress of pointless policy is a product of the way a certain group among the American elites think, described by sociologist C. Wright Mills as ‘crackpot realism’. Crackpot realists are technocrats and incrementalists; they work logically from one step to another, but do so in a bubble which is somewhat detached from reality. The result is a bit like an Impressionist painting, but in reverse – up close it makes perfect sense, but from far away it doesn’t make sense at all.
Aaron Mate and Alyona Minkovski: FBI, DOJ Eye Russian Media Outlets as ‘Foreign Agents’
The US Justice Department and FBI are scrutinizing the Russian state-owned Sputnik and RT networks as potential ‘foreign agents,’ raising questions of press freedom, says independent journalist Alyona Minkovski.
Reviving Détente?
On Capitol Hill yesterday there were echoes of the closing decades of the Cold War in which first détente, then Ronald Reagan’s direct engagement with Mikhail Gorbachev prevailed in Washington’s relationship with Moscow. On Wednesday, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) convened a panel of four experts from the recently re-founded American Committee for East-West Accord, an update on a similarly titled organization established in 1974. The four speakers, with backgrounds in diplomacy, business and academia, set out, in the words of board member and noted Russia expert Stephen F. Cohen, “to promote debate and discussion about American-Russian relations at a time when these relations are really lousy, and getting worse.”
Meduza: Comparing Russian and American government ‘propaganda’
In this infographic, Meduza compares the U.S. government’s international news media to RT and Sputnik, to get a better sense of just how big these operations are, relative to each other.
Shock and Awed: Yes, Russia Can Still Fight a War
Newsflash: Russia is not some tinpot third-world basket case with a make-believe army, but rather the nation with the third-highest military spending on the planet.
John Batchelor and Stephen F. Cohen PODCAST: Will Russia Leave the West?
The new Cold War could drive the planet’s largest country, long anchored politically in both geopolitical worlds, eastward to stay.
Sinai plane crash: Bomb may have downed airliner, US and UK say
Intelligence suggests the Russian plane that crashed in Egypt killing all 224 people on board may have been brought down by a bomb, US and UK officials say.
Reconsidering Russia PODCAST: Ambassador Jack Matlock Talks With Pietro Shakarian
In this wide-ranging interview, Ambassador Matlock discusses his interest in Russia, his first assignment in Moscow in 1961, his work for Presidents Reagan and Bush, Sr. as the American ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987 to 1991, and his first impressions of, and meetings with, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. Matlock also reflects on the folly of NATO expansion and an interventionist American foreign policy.
Ukraine leader’s wealth grows despite war, economic woes
The value of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s assets soared despite economic crisis and conflict while those of other tycoons shrank in an annual wealth list published Friday.
The 50-year-old Western-backed president’s business empire ranges from chocolates to media holdings still under his control.
Josh Cohen: Here’s what a realistic Ukraine settlement may look like
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis wants the Trump administration to supply Ukraine with “defensive weapons” to combat the Russian-supported separatists occupying parts of eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region. On a recent visit to Kiev, Mattis told a news conference that these weapons “are not provocative unless you are an aggressor, and clearly Ukraine is not an aggressor.”