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Europe's challenge: a measured response to Russia

With the end of the Cold War the geo-strategic reality in Europe changed. The Charter of Paris, signed in 1990, confirmed the right of both small...

National Guard: the watchdog that could break the leash

With one of Putin’s closest henchmen as commander and 400,000 armed men on its payroll, the National Guard, created in 2016, is a serious new player...

German-Russian alienation: Kremlin is to blame

As the Siemens scandal has shown, relations between Russia and Germany deteriorate quickly. This ends a period of fruitful cooperation between...

Gas and oil interests split Europe and US in sanction policy

As Trump and Putin met for the first time during the G20, they apparently didn't speak about a very sensitive issue: the economic sanctions. This...

Cyber-challenge cuts both ways

Russia now is considered as one of the main actors in cyberwar. But using 'patriotic hackers' can backfire in your own country. As the massive...

Politics is over for Russian citizens

This year’s tv call-in show with Vladimir Putin revealed that politics has been entirely removed from the public sphere in Russia. Government...

Putin the eclectic historian

Putin’s administration, in its quest for historical legitimacy, seeks to synthesize disparate elements of Russia’s different ‘pasts’ into a kind of...

The growing influence of history in ideology

Russia is a country with a suspended and unresolved historical memory. Therefore, life is now becoming more ideological, while ideology is becoming...

American obsession with Russia helps Putin's reelection

The allegations against Russia interfering in the American elections are still murky. After the elections contacts between Russian government...

Putin's message: make Russia great again

Is Russia a superpower or a house of cards? This was the subject of a debate organised by RaamopRusland in De Balie in Amsterdam. According to one...

Belarus nuclear plant frightens neighbouring countries

Belarus limits the international safety inspections and doesn't provide full information during the construction of the Ostrovets nuclear power...

Russia has no grand plans, but lots of ‘adhocrats’

Late Putinism is not working with a long-sighted grand design, as people who believe the Trump-dossier seem to think. Relentless hollowing out of...

Navalny the unpredictable

In his article 'Navalny een xenofoob? Max Bader argues that Russia’s opposition leader, is not a xenophobe, but rather a moderate nationalist, who...

The Future of Unwanted Histories

Fashioning of a good future out of a bad past through constructing a ‘usable past’ for the national narrative is not unique to Russia. But in...

Why Putin won’t get tough on Kadyrov

The persecution of gay people in Chechnya may point to a profound weakness in the Kremlin’s power in the republic. President Putin apparently has no...

U.S-Russian Relations: Back to Square One - Part II

After Donald Trump took power a ‘reset’ of U.S.-Russian relations wasn’t even attempted. Why was a ‘grand bargain’, being so far beyond reality,...

U.S.-Russian relations: back to square one - Part I

A mere two and a half months after his inauguration Donald Trump acknowledged that ‘we’re not getting along with Russia at all, we may be at an...

History in Russia: Two Memories and Multiple Pasts

Who writes Russian history nowadays: the state or the citizens? Since the protests of 2011-2012, the state is controlling the historical narrative...

Torn between the EU and Russia, Belarus is rife with conspiracy theories

Last Monday, April 3, Lukashenko and Putin met in Saint Petersburg to overcome their controversies. After the meeting they announced that all...

Red October: a matter of national security

De Russische revolutie van 1917 was een keerpunt: voor Rusland zelf, en voor de rest van de wereld. Al honderd jaar zijn oorzaken en gevolgen...

Deciphering Gazprom’s pipeline agenda in Europe

Gazprom seems ready to make concessions to the European Union in a deal about liberalization of gas markets in Central and Eastern Europe. But it is...

Nuclear arms race returns as if Cold War never ended

Many statements of Donald Trump may be contradictory, his plan to 'rebuild the US military into the strongest on earth' has been consistently...

Russian survival in Trumpian World: Bad Romance

The belief that it was the Kremlin’s dream to see Trump in the White House is an exaggeration. The Trump/Bannon/Leninist urge to destroy the...

Russian model helps extreme right to become mainstream

In March the French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen (FN) visited the Duma in Moscow, looking for financial support for her presidential...

Russian gas supplies to Europe on the rise

Politics is politics, but money is money. Three years after the adoption of the EU Energy Security Strategy in Brussels not much has changed....

Patriotic activism might be good, but discipline is better

When Crimea was annexed in 2014, the Kremlin temporarily allowed patriotic activism to rally support. The authorities soon saw the potential risks...

Russian gas dominates, in spite of Energy Union

The Energy Union of the EU, launched two years ago, emphasised the need to diversify energy sources, suppliers and routes. However, the Nord Stream...

The Baltics in weak Europe: be tough and don't panic

Since the Russian interference in Ukraine the three Baltic countries started worrying about their security situation. They increased their military...

Macho talk has become cool politics

Populists use macho talk to show their disrespect to the elites and their closeness to the lower strata. Putin and Trump, though very different...

Why do the West and Russia fear each other?

In december Dmitri Trenin, director of Carnegie Moscow Center, published the book 'Should we fear Russia?' He warns the West not to let the...

The leaked Trump-Russia dossier rings frighteningly true

There are factual mistakes in the Trump blackmail dossier that was put together by a British spy, says Andrei Soldatov, who has been researching...

The Trump Dossier: dynamite or disinformation?

In the fierce information battle on Donald Trump a 35 page highly secret document by an unknown British intelligence officer was leaked that, if...

Russian boots on the ground in Aleppo

Aleppo. Pictures Russian Ministry of Defense Published by The Moscow Times The Russian Ministry of Defense has published sobering images of...

Punish the criminal, not the instrument

On December 29 president Obama kicked out 35 Russian diplomats in response to Russian interference with the American elections. Putin waits to see...

Hacking Western democracy

President Obama struck back at Russia on December 29 for its alleged cyber-attacks, designed to influence the 2016 election. After intelligence...

Not every election is about Russia

The West is inclined to interpret and explain national politics by referring to Russia or Putin. However, the recent electoral misfortunes of...

A quiet coup? What lay behind the Russian minister's arrest?

Did President Putin let the genie out of the bottle when he placed Russia’s elite under surveillance? The arrest of the Russian minister of Economic...

Without the West

Brexit, Trump, no-vote in Italy: 2016 shows that the tide has turned, says political analyst Fyodor Lukyanov. The model of a global structure...

Will Trump Become the Kremlin’s Icebreaker?

Before the elections the Russian leadership was praising Donald Trump. After his victory the Kremlin should worry about mercurial personality of the...

Russia's mobilisation may prove Putin's undoing

Is Russia really readying itself for war? Certainly the drum-beat of alarmist propaganda on TV would seem to be conditioning the population for a...

Why Trump’s victory has closed Russia’s road to change

The message that Donald Trump’s sudden triumph sends is very clear: the U.S. political system has failed at its core. The bulwark of liberal...

First thoughts about surviving the 'Trumpocalypse'

Perhaps we should have been warned by the American predilection for zombie apocalypse dramas, that it was a precautionary signal from deep within...

Ultraconservatism is the new Russian Zeitgeist

Ultraconservatism is the new Russian Zeitgeist. The country’s leadership has embraced it. Its influence on Russian media is obvious, and the public...

Uzbekistan's instability is real but not because of islamist threat

Uzbekistan’s leaders justify their crackdown on domestic opposition pointing to the threat of islamist movements. These organisations, however, do...

Nonofficial culture in Russia is flourishing - and it is less underground than we think

The picture of Putin's Russia that we are offered by Dutch media has fundamental gaps. Alongside the frauds and repression there are other...

Russians can make a difference in Sunday's elections: by staying at home

The Duma is a rubber stamp parliament and the elections of September 18 are rigged. Still there is one thing the Kremlin is worried about: what if...

The Russian Protest Movement: Not Dead, Not Alive, Just Different

by Yekaterina Schulmann There are two widespread misconceptions about protest activity in Russia. The first is that, for some mysterious reason,...

Uzbekistan after Karimov

After days of rumours president Karimov has been officially declared dead. The funeral is September 3. Who will succeed him? Uzbekistan watchers are...

Putin and Erdogan, despite Assad, against the West

Russia and Turkey have surprisingly quickly found each other again in their mutual aversion against the West, which in their opinion routinely...

What is behind Russia's tough talk on Crimea?

Russia reacted unusually strong after a misty shoot-out near the border with Crimea, blamed on 'Ukrainian terrorists'. Putin in Moscow even spoke of...

No reason for Moscow to cheer a Turkish solo

The meeting between Russia’s president Vladimir Putin and his Turkish colleague Recep Tayyip Erdogan on August 10 did not turn into the big...

Turkey, Russia and NATO: a reset of relations

5 augustus 2016 The failed military coup against president Erdogan will affect the foreign policy of Turkey. The military was focused on the West....

Confessions of a Kremlin conspiracy theorist

Recent arrests and dismissals of governors, nominations of body guards of Putin to high professions, leaks of American emails seem to fit a pattern...

There is a black hole where Russia's ethics should be

22 juli 2016 Why is Russia dismissing every criticism, like the WADA-report on doping, as Russophobia? The problem with Russia, writes Russian...

Wierd Duk's silence on Ukraine is deafening

Dutch journalist Wierd Duk thinks the West bears great responsability for Russia's behaviour towards Ukraine. The Ukrainian writer and analyst...

Stop NATO blame game, East and West must urgently talk to ease tensions

After the NATO summit in Warsaw, West and East should stop blaming each other and immediately start negotiations to eliminate the possibility of...

Putin's results in China so far limited

In June Putin visited China to sign numerous gas and oil contracts. The results were so far limited.Russia strengthened its position on the Chinese...

Who wants to join the Eurasian Economic Union?

In spite of Putin's efforts, the Eurasian Economic Union is not exactly an attractive perspective. The countries that joined keep eying the European...

Lack of knowledge about Ukraine suits Kremlin

According to many experts in East and West, like Sergei Karaganov and Henry Kissinger, the European Union needlessly provoked Russia in Ukraine. The...

The West must finally recognise the beam in its eye

Former German MP Karsten Voigt (SPD) thinks the West should take a stronger line against Russia. But journalist Wierd Duk feels that it makes more...

Europe fails to understand Gazprom's powerplay

European countries allow Gazprom to 'divide and rule' the gas market with empty promises. They don't succeed in formulating a common European energy...

Why Stalin makes a comeback in Russia

In Russia we witness a slow reevaluation of Stalin as victor of World War II. It is part of a rewriting of history. But the Stalin terror poses a...

Europe is weak, Christian Russia is winning

Russia and Europe are fighting an ideological battle. The postmodern, secular and powerless Europe is challenged by Russia, where dignity, tradition...

Truth is an illusion, everybody lies

Truth is irrelevant in the information war of the Kremlin. That is the difference between Russian and Soviet propaganda, says journalist Peter...
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