Ukraine has denied any involvement in the terrorist attack that killed dozens of people in Moscow, but that doesn’t mean Russia won’t try to use the event as a way to escalate its war with Ukraine.
Russia has tied its currency to gold to evade sanctions. Shifting the ruble away from a pegged value and into the gold standard itself is aimed at making it a credible gold substitute at a fixed rate.
Western governments must honestly assess the mistaken assumptions that have undermined effective policies in the past and articulate what a better future would look like for the Russian people.
Russian disinformation expert Ilya Yablokov tells The Conversation Weekly podcast about the president’s shifting relationship with conspiracy theories.
Vladimir Putin faces token opposition in the polls this weekend after his regime has viciously cracked down on opposition figures. He’s likely to be even more repressive in his next term.
A centralised system of government has allowed Putin to project power, but the country’s health care, schools, infrastructure and general quality of life have sharply deteriorated.
While Putin is all but guaranteed to win, war fatigue, electoral engineering and extreme risk-aversion suggest that the Kremlin is anxious to get these elections over and done with.