American Committee for US-Russia Accord

With most Russia-related stories these days, especially ones in The New York Times and The Washington Post, the best initial reaction is heavy skepticism.

Trump/Putin theories are increasingly the top concern that plugged-in “Resistance” types bring up at the highly-charged town hall meetings that have received so much attention of late.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Information Policy is preparing a list of websites that “undermine Ukrainian sovereignty” as part of an effort to uphold the country’s new information security doctrine, signed on February 25 by President Petro Poroshenko.

Pietro A. Shakarian, a PhD Candidate in Russian History at The Ohio State University, spoke to John Batchelor about the recent clashes in Nagorno-Karabakh. In their conversation, Shakarian and Batchelor discuss what lies behind the latest fighting in the region, Armenia’s relations with the EU and Russia, and much else besides. A must listen for anyone trying to understand the complex dynamics at play in the Caucasus.

Several Trump campaign advisers had business ties to Russia, so that must be nefarious, right? [Read more…] about What’s Behind the Putin Fantasies (Wall St. Journal)

TYT Politics reporter Michael Tracey, interviews Nation contributing editor and professor emeritus of Russian studies at Princeton University and New York University Stephen F. Cohen. Michael and Dr. Cohen discuss Donald Trump and Russia among other things.

A large bulk of the article is devoted to what has now become standard – and very profitable – fare among East Coast news magazines: feeding Democrats the often-xenophobic, hysterical Russia-phobia for which they have a seemingly insatiable craving.

Is Putin’s Russia an enemy, as McCain seems to believe?

Before we can answer that question, we need to know what the new world struggle is about, who the antagonists are, and what the threats are to us.

With a resurgence in ultra-nationalist violence in Kiev and a rise of anti-Semitism in Ukraine and the Balts, we revisit the below piece from The New Republic which lauded, “the tiny group of nationalists in Ukraine” who “represent the country’s only hope of escaping apathy, rapacious corruption, and, eventually, dismemberment.”

The U.S. intelligence community’s extraordinary campaign of leaks claiming improper ties between President Trump’s team and Russia seeks to ensure a lucrative New Cold War by blocking detente, reports Gareth Porter.

The West’s current hysteria about “Russian aggression” ignores the long history of real Western aggression against Russia, now underscored by plans to sharply increase spending on nuclear weapons, note Chuck Spinney and Pierre Sprey.

FEW FOREIGN VILLAINS have been vested with omnipotence and ubiquity like Vladimir Putin has been — at least ever since Democrats discovered (what they mistakenly believed was) his political utility as a bogeyman.

Russia’s role in Trump’s election has led to a boom in Putinology. But do all these theories say more about us than Putin?