Latest
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Published in: oDRRussian Reform at a Turning Point
Much of Russian history is characterized by pendulum swings between orthodoxy and reform to overcome backwardness....
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Published in: oDRMoscow protests: Groundhog Day in Triumfalnaya Square
Tanya Lokshina, Russia researcher for Human Rights Watch, attended a recent demonstration in her professional...
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Published in: oDRUkraine: Yanukovych’s limited mandate
Ukraine is a diverse nation with a strong civil society. This could restrain a potentially authoritarian political...
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Published in: oDRA Soldier's Tale 6: new beginnings? Perhaps!
Conscript Tolya has been moved again, this time to a show regiment. Life suddenly looks rather better, but is it for real?
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Published in: oDRRussian unemployment: massaging the stats
The economic crisis has hit Russian regions hard. Natalya Zubarevich deems government solutions to the resulting...
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Published in: oDRWho is Russia's top intellectual?
Throughout Russian and Soviet history, the intellectual has played a central and hugely influential role in society....
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Published in: oDRA Soldier’s Tale (5): a new life? Not b… likely!
Our conscript, Tolya, has left basic training. He hopes that things will be different, but his hopes are soon dashed...
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Published in: oDRThe wilting petals of Georgia’s rose revolution
There were such hopes for the future in Georgia after the Rose Revolution in 2004, but history is running backwards,...
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Published in: oDRRussia and the Eastern Partnership: from zero-sum to positive-sum
Alexander Sergunin is right that Moscow is concerned the EU’s Eastern Partnership is setting out to undermine its...
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Published in: oDREU and Russia: an Eastern Partnership Muddling on?
Moscow’s attitude towards the EU fluctuates. There are deep-seated doubts that the EU is attempting to undermine...
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Published in: oDRWinter Storm in Tatarstan
Jobs are scarce, pension rises mediocre and the local authorities have even taken away the Christmas trees. But...
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Published in: oDRA Soldier’s Tale (4): the army paradox
Letters are a life-line for Tolya. The army’s a mysterious entity, unknowable by anyone outside it, the conscript...
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Published in: oDRRussia's elite will grow up! (2)
In the second part of this important interview with polit.ru’s Boris Dolgin, veteran foreign affairs analyst Dmitry...
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Published in: oDRPost-Soviet integration: CST, CSTO, CRRF etc (2)
There have been many attempts at building new structures to replace the Soviet Union, since it fell 10 years ago....
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Published in: oDRIn memoriam Nastya and Stas
Anastasia Baburova and Stanislav Markelov were gunned down in a neo-Nazi contract killing a year ago. In this moving...
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Published in: oDRA soldier’s tale (3): hospital, then what?
In this third excerpt from his letters, our Russian conscript ends up in hospital, with time to reflect on what lies...
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Published in: oDRKyiv's crisis: the EU role
On the eve of Ukraine’s election, Andreas Umland rebukes Europe for its indecisive policy towards Ukraine. By...
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Published in: oDRA soldier’s tale (2): trying to blend in
In this second letter home our new conscript Tolya is starting to settle in to his two-year stint in Russia’s army....
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Published in: oDRRussia’s foreign policy: modernise or marginalise (1)
Russia’s foreign policy is outdated, according to the distinguished foreign affairs analyst Dmitry Trenin. In the...
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Published in: oDRPost-Soviet integration: does the CIS work?
2010 sees the 19th anniversary of the collapse of the USSR. In the first of this two-part review of the structures...