Russian Politics

Even though Russia will most likely remain the largest gas exporter to Europe for the foreseeable future, it is clear that Gazprom can no longer retain its monopoly over much of the European gas market that had heretofore allowed it to impose its will and dictate terms to Central and Eastern European customers. With the cost of the Nord Stream Two and TurkStream projects totaling almost $20 billion, it also remains questionable whether Putin’s current gas strategies will ever prove profitable for Russia.

This research is dealing with  the relationship between authoritarian state-building and ideology in contemporary Russia.  The collapse of the Soviet Union introduced a period of remarkable economic and political changes, but also of a turmoil and uncertainty for many. Unlike the Soviet Union, Russian Federation was a state without official ideology. However, when Putin's attempts to  consolidate the Russian regime along the authoritarian lines, resulted in  harsh Western critique, the need for new sources of legitimation emerged.  To deal with this critique and to thwart the perceived threats of colored revolution in Russia financed and supported by the West, Russian authorities adopted various strategies that combined a political, administrative and intellectual assault on the opposition and Western democratic ideals. An important element of these strategies was an attempt to supply ideological justifications for Russia's undemocratic regime. This attempt included both the de-legitimation of the idea of liberal democracy and the formulation of alternative conception that would legitimize Putin's regime. The latter became known as "sovereign democracy"

Baha’u’llah’s Bishārāt (Glad-Tidings):
A Proclamation to Scholars and Statesmen
Christopher Buck and Youli A. Ioannesyan
Baha’i Studies Review 16 (2010): 3–28.

This article is a historical and textual study of the one of the major writings of Baha’u’llah: the Lawḥ-i Bishārāt (‘Tablet of Glad-Tidings’), revealed circa 1891, and advances new theories as to its provenance and purpose. The ‘Tablet of Glad-Tidings’ is a selective compendium of Baha’u’llah’s laws and principles, sequentially presented in a series of fifteen ‘Glad-Tidings.’ As the Arabic term, bishārāt, suggests, these ‘Glad-Tidings’ were a public announcement of some of the essential teachings of the new Baha’i religion. The ‘Glad-Tidings’ is the most extensive of several ‘Tablets’ by Baha’u’llah that present key teachings in a numbered structure. The Glad-Tidings may, in part, be regarded as serially articulated ‘world reforms’ intermixed with religious reforms emanating from Baha’u’llah in his professed role as ‘World Reformer.’ The ‘Glad-Tidings’ also functioned analogously (albeit anachronistically) to a press release, serving not only as a public proclamation, but to rectify the inaccuracies and gross misrepresentations that had previously circulated in print. Intended for widespread translation and publication, the Glad-Tidings was sent to scholars — notably Russian orientalist, Baron Viktor Rosen (1849–1908) and Cambridge Orientalist, Edward Granville Browne (1862–1926) — and possibly pre-revolutionary Russian statesmen as well. As a ‘Proclamatory Aqdas,’ the Tablet of Glad-Tidings was part of a much broader proclamation by Baha’u’llah, who proclaimed his mission to the political and religious leaders of the world. This study will argue that the Baha’u’llah may have revealed the Tablet of Glad-Tidings for E.G. Browne — or rather through him, since Baha’u’llah evidently intended that Browne should translate and publish the Bishārāt in order to make the nature of the Baha'i teachings more widely known. This would then correct the distortions that had previously been published regarding Baha’u’llah's purpose and the nature of the religion that he founded, thereby, promoting a public awareness that a new world religion was on the horizon of modernity.

Slovakia’s relations with the states of Eastern Europe not only have a bilateral impact, but contain geopolitical, security and economic dimensions as well. This article analyzes the domestic, bilateral and multilateral aspects of relations between Slovakia and Russia before and after the parliamentary elections of 1998, when Slovakia adopted a pro-Western course aimed at EU and NATO membership. The article also focuses on bilateral relations with Ukraine, where Slovakia is among the most active supporters of Ukraine’s future EU membership. The final sections analyze the Eastern policy of Slovakia – particularly within the framework of the EU’s Eastern Partnership and the Visegrad Group – as well as Slovakia’s relations with the new Eastern European partners, such as Belarus, Moldova and Georgia, as target countries of Slovakia’s “soft power.”

At the beginning of 2019, Russia was quite confident it would be able to either redirect its gas transit to the EU away from Ukraine before the expiration of the transit contract or renew the deal on Moscow’s own terms. But despite Gazprom’s (i.e., the Kremlin’s) transit diversification strategy, the new five-year deal shows that the Ukrainian transit corridor still remains of paramount importance for Russia

This article argues that accounts of the Russian media system that tend to view the time from Vladimir Putin’s rise to power in 2000 as a single homogenous period do not capture major qualitative shifts in state-controlled media coverage. By analyzing the output of Russia’s two main television channels during Putin’s third presidential term, we identify a range of distinctly new features that amount to a new media strategy. This involves a significant increase in the coverage of political issues through the replacement of infotainment with what we term agitainment—an ideologically inflected content that, through adapting global media formats to local needs, attempts to appeal to less engaged and even sceptical viewers. Despite the tightening of political control over the media following the annexation of Crimea, the new strategy paradoxically has strengthened the constitutive role played by the state-controlled broadcasters in the articulation of official discourse.

L’intento di questo lavoro è presentare un quadro che sia il più completo possibile nell’analizzare il percorso dell’Unione delle Repubbliche Socialiste Sovietiche dalla sua nascita, nel 1922, fino al suo crollo, nel 1991 e, successivamente, la delicata fase di transizione russa dal comunismo all’economia di mercato, cercando di mettere in luce i problemi incontrati dal Paese nell’instaurare la democrazia. L'ultima parte analizza la figura della Banca Europea per la Ricostruzione e lo Sviluppo ed il suo ruolo specifico nella delicata fase di transizione economica della Russia.

The beginning of Vladimir Putin’s third term was characterised by the politicisation of corruption. Opposition forces focused on corruption and criticised the regime for tolerating it. This article explores how the regime reacted to opposition criticism. The regime encountered a dilemma: it could not ignore the opposition but promoting anti-corruption reforms was risky for the regime. This study focuses on the regime’s use of the All-Russia People’s Front (Obshcherossiiskii Narodnyi Front—ONF) and concludes that it functioned as a ‘parastatal’ anti-corruption movement, enabling the regime to deflect the blame without directly involving itself in the process.

The Syrian war will allow Russia to recover its naval presence in the Mediterranean. The Russian Navy will have more facilities at the same time that the Chinese Navy will appear in this scenario. This new situation will give us a new world order; this period we call "Tens Calm". Something similar happened after Bismarck Era, the period called "Armed Peace" (1890-1914), when the global balance was broken. This pre-war environment in the media could have been avoided. Russia today tries to recover its old deployment in the Mediterranean to become a global power.

This study examines the role of political factors in attitudes toward World War II in contemporary Ukraine. The question under examination is which factors determine public views of the principal warring sides and their leaders in Ukraine. This paper uses a representative national survey specifically designed for this research project and conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in 2012. It analyzes the roles of regionalism, political party preferences, ethnicity, language, age, and sex in attitudes toward the Red Army, Soviet partisans, the German Army (Wehrmacht), and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) during the war, as well as toward the wartime leaders of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and the UPA. The analysis of the survey data shows that regional values, political party preferences, ethnicity, language, and age have significant effects on views of the Soviet Army and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army during the war and attitudes toward the wartime activities of Joseph Stalin and Roman Shukhevych. Public perceptions of the German Army and Adolf Hitler in Ukraine do not vary much across regions, political parties, and ethnic, language, age, and sex groups.

В 1996 р. Чеська Республіка вступила до НАТО, а ще через шість років – до Євросоюзу. Ці два головні чинники привели до формування у чехів враження, ніби вони живуть в цілком безпечному просторі, що їхню свободу та демократію вже не спіткають значні виклики. Проте Росія не відкликала своїх агентів, навпаки, за останні роки російський вплив лише збільшився. Російські спецслужби створюють чеськомовні ЗМІ, що стають рупорами пропутінської пропаганди, підкупляють чи шантажують чеських політиків, і все це – через імперські амбіції. І все це для того, щоб підірвати ще нетверду чеську демократію, яка продовжує формуватися, внести безлад, загальмувати інтеграцію Чехії до оборонних та політичних структур Заходу – аби ця центральноєвропейська країна якомога довше залишалася в цупких обіймах скутої санкціями недоімперії.
Відомий чеський журналіст Одржей Кундра в кількох нарисах розповідає про діяльність російських спецслужб в Чехії та Європі взагалі.

Georgia, a small state in the South Caucasus, is the most ardent supporter of Euro-Atlantic integration in the entire post-Soviet region. Georgia’s possible membership in NATO looms large not only in terms of politics in the South Caucasus but increasingly in the tense relations between Russia and the West. In July 2018, NATO extended an official invitation to Macedonia, thereby processing its eighth enlargement. Zooming in on Georgia and Macedonia’s performance on membership requirements is a one-of-a-kind litmus test of perspectives of Georgia’s membership in NATO. The comparative analysis unveils that Georgia has outperformed Macedonia in all key areas of reforms and that NATO still pays more attention to geopolitical aspects of membership, rather compatibility with the Alliance’s requirements.

Hat die derzeitige politische Ordnung in Russland mittel- und langfristig Bestand? Die fundamentale Herausforderung der Fortexistenz des heutigen kleptokratischen Regimes Russlands in den kommenden Jahren wird das Zusammenfallen zweier systemunterwandernder Tendenzen – ökonomischer Stagnation und politischer Transition – sein. Deren kombinierter Effekt wird selbst kluge Kremlführung nicht ohne weiteres neutralisieren können. Es wird daher früher oder später wieder zu einem System- und nicht nur Führungswechsel in Russland kommen, worauf der Westen sich bereits heute einstellen sollte.

The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the bipolar system of international relations, so many people believed, opened up unprecedented opportunities for restructuring the world on the basis of general human values and interests. The world community has, it would seem, received a unique historical chance for the formation of a new international order on just legal principles, and to enter the new century and millennium free from the past legacy of confrontation. The threats of a new order of international relations have replaced the threats and contradictions of the bipolar world, dominated by Soviets and Americans. In fact, threats to security may even be accentuated in the condition of greater interdependence of states. The stability of many countries and whole regions is shaken by conflicts connected with interethnic and in-terconfessional tensions, religious extremism, and aggressive separatism. The danger of proliferation of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery is particularly menacing. The gap between the poor and the rich countries does not shrink. Whilst the ecological and climatic equilibrium of the planet is being violated, the U.S. withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol can make this international initiative less effective. The narcotics trade has grown, as has organized crime, which has increasingly crossed national frontiers and assumed truly global proportions. The course of international developments was indeed greatly impacted by the end of the "bipolar system." States not only found themselves less well protected against the old "diseases," but faced the new ones too. Crucially, adequate mechanisms to ensure international stability in the face of these new changes were not created. This essay will explain geopolitical dynamics in Eurasia, assess whether Mackinder's Heartland thesis can be used to shed light on them, and ask what lessons foreign policy planners in the Central Asian region can derive from this. In saecula saeculorum (Forever and ever) Today Eurasia is the key arena of international politics, by virtue both of its significance in the modern world and the role that it will play in determining the contours of future scenarios. This assertion can be validated with reference to the goals, tasks and priorities of the foreign policy of the United States, set out annually in a White House publication. Since 1997 this report has been published under the title, "A National Strategy for a New Century." 1 The chief premise, from which the United States proceeds in the formulation of its national strategy, is the recognition of the instability of the present-day world, the existence of threats to the security of both itself and its allies, and the challenge they present to America's world domination. The report notes that the balance of power in the world is subject to constant changes, is unstable, and is fraught with various threats. One such threat is seen in the instability of a number of regions of the world, in which certain countries have the possibility of inflicting

Is there more to Russian politics than Putin?

Inside Russian Politics is an intelligent, critical and engaging account of the realities of contemporary Russian politics.  It is distinctive in widening our view of Russia beyond the standard account of global power plays and resurgent authoritarian menace. Putin matters, but he is not Russia. Russian military adventurism has had a major effect on contemporary international affairs, but assessing its aims and projecting future intentions and impacts requires analysis within a context deeper than the stock ‘Cold War renewed’ story.

The holistic approach of this book facilitates our understanding of power politics in and beyond the Kremlin and of Russian policy on the international stage. Revealing the Russia beyond Moscow and the central figures around Putin, Edwin Bacon focuses on Russia’s political present, not to ignore the past but to move beyond cliché and misleading historical analogy to reveal the contemporary – and future – concerns of Russia’s current generation of politicians.

since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Russian leaders (especially Gorbachev and Yeltsin) have struggled to be part of the international community as a great power. Facing a reluctance — if not isolation — caused by a Cold-War paradigm which takes the form of Atlanticism, the Russian Federation had to shift from Western integration to the re-establishment of regional influence. This shift has several justifications aside from Russian international exclusion: first, when Putin was elected, Russia was slowly recovering from its collapse, thus had more leverage to initiate regional influence. Moreover, and to counter Atlanticist exclusion, Putin headed towards regional influence to set up Russia for the upcoming multi-polar world — by opposition with the ‘New World Order’ presented by the United States at the end of the Cold War. The question whether Russia is a normal great power or a hegemon implies different implications: first, considering the West-oriented current world order, is an objective assessment of both terms and both terms applied to Russia objective? Does Russia meet the criterions for being called a great power? Does it tend to be a hegemon?
As a matter of fact, the answer can vary according to one’s view but also and essentially according to one’s perspective. Consequently, I will first attempt to contextualise the tensions between the West and Russia which led the latter to oppose the former and thus to tend toward hegemonism. Second, one will have a look at the differences between a great power and a hegemon as an attempt to apply as objectively as possible the different criterions on Russia to determine whether it is an hegemon. Moreover,  Russia’s heritage provides a comprehensive explanation for its foreign policy choices. The final point will be that by becoming a regional hegemon, Russia can pretend to a normal great power status as it is the contemporary requirement for playing the role to which it aspire to in international affairs.

Formally titled the “Transparency Requirements for Parties Supported by Foreign State Entities Bill 5766-2016,” the new law passed on July 11 2016 its third and final vote by 57-48: the Knesset approved the proposal by Israeli Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked to provide a useful framework to inform the Israeli public about the donors, funding amounts received, and the nature of the projects implemented by NGOs. Shaked used the word 'transparency' to camouflage her objective i.e. to defame organisations opposed to government policy. The Israeli law, which regulates organizations receiving foreign funding, resembles the Russian law which requires NGOs to register with the Justice Ministry if they receive foreign funding for political activities. There is no universally accepted definition of political activities for the purposes of NGO engagement, and the term “political activity” is subject to multiple interpretations.

Beyond geopolitics. The Sino-Russian relations in the late 2010s Since more than a decade the international (Western) academia has been considering Sino-Russian relations as an "Axis of Convenience": a temporarily, shallow , tactical alliance prone to changing circumstances; a one that may turn into antagonism should international situation evolve. This approach reached its climax after Donald Trump's victory in US Presidential elections in 2016: many believed that there would soon be "a reverse Nixon's strategy". The reality has falsified these theses and showed that Sino-Russian relations have solid foundations. These more stable base of Russia-China relations was born in late 2000s when Russian ruling elite made a choice and decided that China did not pose a threat to current Russian regime. This elite's understanding paved a way for current Sino-Russian rapprochement.

This power point presentation is a short analysis of the famous statue of Peter the Great in St. Petersburg, Russia, and its construction.  The obstacles that were faced were indeed daunting but were overcome to create a work that has become the symbol of the city.

Simon Springer (Department of Geography, University of Victoria, Canada) contributes this short essay about his visit to Moscow and Domitrov. He organized a session titled “For Kropotkin” with Anthony Ince for the IGU Moscow Regional Conference and made a trip to the Kropotkin museum in Dmitrov.

Russia’s new security strategy can be read as an overview of the Russian
leadership’s world view. The new document puts more emphasis on threats and
problems than its predecessor, subsuming national security within the protection
of broadly and vaguely defined national interests.

https://esprit.presse.fr/article/marie-mendras/poutine-chef-de-guerre-41545
Le 7​ mai 2018, Vladimir Poutine est une nouvelle fois investi président de la Russie dans la forteresse du Kremlin. Sous les ors de la salle du Trône, le président reçoit les félicitations de son clan, des dignitaires et de Gerhard Schröder[1]. La reconduction de Dmitri Medvedev à la tête du gouvernement est confirmée, ainsi que la nomination de ses vice-Premiers ministres, tous des serviteurs loyaux. Le surlendemain, Vladimir Poutine préside le défilé militaire pour fêter l'anniversaire de la victoire russe sur l'Allemagne nazie. Cette année encore, la mise en scène et le discours martial sur la place Rouge ont pour but de montrer que la Russie est prête à la guerre. Cependant, quatre jours plus tôt, le 5​ mai, la rue était protestataire. À l'appel d'Alexeï Navalny et des mouvements d'opposition, des manifestations ont eu lieu dans de nombreuses villes. La répression a été brutale : plus de 1 600 personnes, dont des jeunes, ont été arrêtées, 23 journalistes ont été molestés et/ou arrêtés. Le scénario est le même que le 6​ mai 2012 quand, sur la place Bolotnaïa, des dizaines de milliers de citoyens avaient protesté contre une élection malhonnête et un gouvernement « de voleurs et d'escrocs ». La répression avait été implacable, de nombreux manifestants avaient été condamnés, certains purgent encore leur peine de prison aujourd'hui. L'épreuve électorale La répétition de cet épisode, six ans plus tard, jette une lumière crue sur la décadence du régime. Ceux qui voient dans la répétition du rituel « plébiscite-répression » la preuve de la toute-​ puissance du groupe dirigeant font un contresens. Pour Vladimir Poutine et ses hommes, la « victoire écrasante » dans des urnes sous contrôle ​ n'apporte aucun répit.

In political science an accent on individuals (political leaders) in researching politics is neither popular nor advocated one. In authoritarian countries like Russia or China, however, political leaders and their personalities are a crucial factor in trying to understand the political processes there. Both Vladimir Putin in Russia and Xi Jinping in China have dominated their respective political systems. This, combined with good state of Russia-China relations makes it an interesting case study of the influence of political leaders on authoritarian countries. Both Putin and Xi are new type of leaders: they both follow the main ideas of political realism (though with "national differences") and they share a 19 th century outlook on the global affairs ("concert of powers") yet they use contemporary means to fulfil these interests. Their personal understanding provides a predictability and stability: both Putin and Xi function in accordance with balance of power and respect for zones of influence concepts. That is why differences in other spheres, like Rus-sia's and China's approaches to the USA do not influence the general good mood of Sino-Russian relationship.

The appearance on Russian TV stations Channel One and NTV of the plans for a nuclear torpedo/unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) has prompted much interest among observers.  Among other aspects, its probably salted warhead attracted much attention, the addition of Cobalt-59 ensuring long-lasting radiation designed to render a wide area uninhabitable for years. The July 1948 Baker test in Bikini Atoll illustrated the effects of a shallow underwater explosion. Missile defence experts have noted how, in line with Russian commentary, the system seems to be designed to bypass Western progress in this field. There’s another significant aspect of the possible construction of this weapon: its impact on the international law of the sea.

From this perspective, there are at least three issues that need to be discussed: whether a submarine carrying nuclear torpedoes may carry out innocent passage through another country’s territorial waters, the 1971 treaty banning nuclear weapons on the seabed, and whether a coastal state may restrict the presence of submarines carrying nuclear torpedoes in its EEZ. This paper examines the three.

Information war waged by Russia against Europe exceeds classical terms of information war. In a classical sense, Lithuania is not losing an information war to Russia. On the contrary, Russia is the one losing. In the classical sense, the aim of any information war is to weaken the society of one’s adversary and prepare it for non-resistance in case of real aggression. That definitely is not the case in Lithuania, where society is now consolidated against the threat of potential Russian aggression as never before. But this is only one part of the picture. Thinking in Western terms when it comes to Russia could be misleading. And information war is a Western term, which is not always applicable to Kremlin actions. Instead of a focus on classical information war, we should pay more attention to the well-known tool of the KGB of the Soviet era called “active measures.”