The conventional wisdom is that the Kremlin would like to see Barack Obama back in the White House next year. Just last month, President Putin told RT, the state-owned TV channel, that Obama was “a genuine person” who “really wants to change much for the better.” But these platitudes fail to cover up the big […]
Is Russia’s Putin a Secret Fan of Mitt Romney?
Posted October 24th, 2012 at 4:05 pm (UTC+0)
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After 20 Years of US Aid, Russia Goes Solo on Controlling Loose Nukes
Posted October 18th, 2012 at 5:03 pm (UTC+0)
The day that Russia’s government decided last week to end its participation in the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program, a huge, mushroom-shaped cloud rose high in the air over Orenburg. In this case, the dust was kicked up by massive, accidental blasts of conventional weapons, largely stores of Soviet-era artillery shells. To avoid the real […]
Charm Alert! Georgia Welcomes Russian Tourists!
Posted October 10th, 2012 at 9:17 pm (UTC+0)
Nervousness was in the air the other afternoon when my S7 Airbus, packed with Russian tourists, touched down at Tbilisi’s international airport. The tourists walked down a sparkling glass corridor to a terminal that Russian bombs narrowly missed four years earlier during the war with Georgia. They meekly lined up in the no-visa line at […]
Is Ivanishvili a Trojan Horse for Russia’s Return to Georgia?
Posted October 3rd, 2012 at 8:17 pm (UTC+0)
In the run-up to Georgia’s parliamentary vote, supporters of President Mikheil Saakashvili derided their opponent, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, as “a Kremlin project.” Activists for Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream coalition were even chased out of one village housing refugees from the 2008 war, shouts of “Russians” ringing in their ears. These Georgians say: follow the money. Not […]
