Once again Julie Bishop has demonstrated she can lay claim to be currently the best performing minister in cabinet. On her recent overseas trip, Foreign Minister Bishop secured an apparently useful meeting…
A bizarre one-off exhibition in Moscow was recently announced to celebrate Vladimir Putin’s birthday. An anonymous group of artists contributed paintings depicting the president as the Greek hero Heracles…
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Tony Abbott during the retreat session of the APEC Summit in 2013.
EPA/MAST IRHAM/POOL
Tony Abbott did not repeat his pledge to “shirt-front” Vladimir Putin when pressed on the subject a day after his initial threat. Now the promise is for a “very, very robust conversation” with the Russian…
Russian President Vladimir Putin has faced criticism from both sides of Australian politics.
EPA/ALEXEY NIKOLSKY / RIA NOVOSTI / KREMLIN POOL
A senior Russian diplomat says Australia-Russia relations are at a “historic low”, as Tony Abbott has pledged to “shirt-front” Vladimir Putin at the G20 next month over the downing of flight MH17. In a…
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attendance at the G20 is awkward for Tony Abbott.
EPA/MAXIM SHIPENKOV
The G20 is bigger than the bad behaviour of any one country, and it would be unfortunate if the controversy over Russian president Vladimir Putin’s presence – now confirmed - were to overshadow next month’s…
Belarus’s Aleksandr Lukashenko grasps Moldova’s Nicolae Timofti on a recent state visit.
EPA
Belarus and Moldova are two former-Soviet states which have moved in very different directions since the end of the Cold War. Moldova has looked firmly west, but struggled to escape Russia’s influence…
Thanks to sanctions, prices for fish in Russia have spiked by up to 50%.
Anatoly Maltsev/AAP
When Russia announced counter-sanctions against the European Union, USA, Canada and Australia banning imports of food items from those countries, it was clear there would be imminent consequences. But…
Are pay disputes making Putin sweat?
Sergei Chirikov/EPA
Sarah Ashwin, London School of Economics and Political Science
While Russia faces global disapproval over its role in Ukraine, president Vladimir Putin has trouble brewing at home. A shared sense of nationalist fervour had helped to underpin an approval rating that…
Polish president Donald Tusk wants the EU to be tough on Russia.
EPA
The Poles and Russians have had a difficult relationship going back centuries. In recent times, the key problem has been competing geopolitical ambitions over the former Soviet republics. Poland wants…
Peace in our time? Poroshenko and Putin shake hands in Minsk.
EPA/Sergei Bondarenko
It has been reported that the Ukrainian government and pro-Russian insurgents have signed a ceasefire agreement at the meeting of the Contact Group on Ukraine in Minsk. This had hardly looked assured in…
With Islamic State lopping off heads and the Russian state lopping off parts of other sovereign states, America suddenly has its enemies back. For a quarter century, the presumption of a creeping, perpetual…
Mariupol residents protest against the rebel advance.
PHOTOMIG/EPA
Not long ago, it seemed that pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine were fighting a losing war – but recent events have changed the status quo dramatically. Russia’s delivery of reinforcements to anti-Kiev insurgents…
‘I wouldn’t call it a miracle, I’d call it an accident’ – Gessen on Putin’s formative experience with the KGB.
Christchurch City Libraries
Russian-American writer and LGBT activist, Masha Gessen has covered every major development in Russian politics and culture of the past two decades. She is the author of Words Will Break Cement: The Passion…
Vladimir Putin with Azerbaijani president Ilkham Aliyev (l) and Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan.
EPA/Ria Novosti
The world has been brutally reminded of the unresolved conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave in the South Caucasus which Armenia and Azerbaijan have locked horns over for more than 25 years. While the…
Garry Kasparov’s unsuccessful campaign for the presidency of chess’ governing body, the Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE), has once again seen chess became an arena for political and ideological…
Whether or not MH17 was shot down on purpose or was just a ghastly mistake, international opinion is overwhelmingly that the airliner was downed by separatist rebels and that they were trained – and their…
On July 31, while it remained unclear exactly how directly involved in the Ukrainian crisis Russia is, the British media ominously reported that Nato had been deemed unready to fight a war with Russia…
Ukraine mourns an unspeakable tragedy.
EPA/Sergei Dolzhenko
The unanimous vote in the UN Security Council on the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over rebel-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine is a welcome step. The resolution, drafted by Australia…
A train carrying the remains of crash victims is guarded by pro-Russian separatists.
EPA/Robert Ghement
US Secretary of State John Kerry has left the rest of the world in no doubt as to who America blames for the downing of MH17, appearing on several Sunday talkshows to point the finger at pro-Russian separatists…
Pro-Russian separatists guarding the crash site.
EPA/Anastasia Vlasova
The shooting down of the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 in Eastern Ukraine on 17th June has placed the conflict which has engulfed that part of Ukraine into an entirely new context. It has transformed the…