by Gordon M. Hahn Introduction Russia’s new federal law ‘On Education in the Russian Federation’ passed by the State Duma and Federation Council in late July and signed into law by President Vladimir Putin in August caused considerable controversy in Russia and some quarters in the West. The new Latvian law on education caused much […]
by Gordon M. Hahn For any chief executive, time and focus are limited. Russian President Vladimir Putin is said to prefer foreign policy to domestic policy. Can this be a fatal flaw – Putin’s “Achilles’ Heel” – that will end in a meltdown of what Russian analysts like to call Putin’s ‘sistema’? Whether it […]
by Gordon M. Hahn Is the Vladimir the Great Balancer who has deftly mixed the carrot and the stick to maintain a tentative balance between the myriad regime, autonomous, and opposition elements that comprise Russia’s metastable politics losing his touch? I have noted several times in the past that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a […]
by Gordon M. Hahn The West maintains friendly relations with almost every post-Soviet state except Russia and its closest ally in the region, Belarus. This, despite the fact that all the post-Soviet states have a series of common traits declared abhorrent by Washington and Brussels. Moreover, many states with which the US and the West […]
by Gordon M. Hahn As the West has turned more and more to Soviet/Russian methods of the ‘big lie’ in order to advance democracy and its interests, the Russia-West propaganda war had produced a post-fact world in which disinformation comes to be believed by its purveyors. Both sides, forgetting the previous disinformation and lies from […]
by Gordon M. Hahn Contrary to their compatriots in the arts, Russian political leaders have not necessarily been all that creative. Smart, yes. Clever and tricky in the Russian peasant’s way, yes. But creative – not so much. In fact, through the centuries Russians have been imitators of, and borrowers from the West. Sometimes it […]
by Gordon M. Hahn The West maintains friendly relations with almost every post-Soviet state except Russia and its closest ally in the region, Belarus. This, despite the fact that all the post-Soviet states have a series of common traits declared abhorrent by Washington and Brussels. Moreover, many states with which the US and the West […]
