Carnegie Moscow Center
The coup d’état in Abkhazia attracted virtually no media attention in Russia, and even less attention was paid to the parliamentary election in South Ossetia. It seems that after almost six years of Abkhazian and South Ossetian “independence,” these territories stopped being Russia’s headache, only to be replaced by Crimea.
Does liberal democracy depend on the existence of ideological and civilizational rivals to spur it into cycles of reinvention and renewal?
Barack Obama’s recent remarks at West Point show that he doesn’t understand the rules of the game he’s playing with Vladimir Putin in Ukraine.
The elections in Ukraine demonstrate that Ukrainians have decisively chosen to turn toward Europe.
The Sino-Russian gas deal emphasizes and accelerates the fading of Russia’s until-now special relationship with the EU. The partnership between Russia and China is acquiring truly strategic depth.
Russian Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky’s primary motive is to curry favor with Vladimir Putin. As Putin has shifted gears to a more conservative, anti-Western, and isolationist outlook, scores of his aggressive loyalists have followed the new trend.
The BJP’s election victory has changed India’s political landscape. Russia has close ties with the BJP, but serious steps are needed to elevate Russian-Indian relations to a new level.
The secretive nature of the gas agreement between Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corp may show that the contract contains something the Russian negotiators could not be proud of in the limelight of Russian public opinion.
The message in Moscow is that Ukraine has been taken over by “Fascists” and neo-Nazis: if the enemies are Fascists, then all means for combatting them are acceptable.
The worse the situation becomes in Russia, the better it looks in the eye of the people. This can be explained by mass self-deception and people’s desire to believe in a fairy tale. However, Russia is approaching a moment of truth when people will realize how serious the country’s problems are.