Over the past few days, Ukraine has taken a significant turn for the worse. Fighting between rebels and government forces has intensified, the civilian death toll has increased, and the war of words between…
Director Andrey Zvyagintsev and actors Vladimir Vdovichenkov and Elena Lyadova at the premier of the controversial film Leviathan.
Sebastien Nogier/EPA
The Russian film world has been in some turmoil this week. First there was news that the government was to decree that films “defiling the national culture, posing a threat to national unity and undermining…
Presidential palace in Kazakh capital Astana.
Mariusk Kluzniak
In this instalment of our series looking at Russia’s relations with the countries along its border, we reach Kazakhstan, Moscow’s closest ally in central Asia. Region specialist Julia Kusznir tells a story…
It’s what comes after the great scientific discoveries that Russia has traditionally missed out on.
Bin im Garten
Loren Graham, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Russia’s economy is highly dependent on the price of oil, as are a few other countries, such as Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. Russia differs from those other countries, however, in having a very strong scientific…
The deadly attack on a bus carrying civilians near Donetsk, killing at least 12 of them and wounding many more, comes in the wake of yet another round of failed talks among the foreign ministers of Russia…
This is the area that holds strategic importance
Reuters/Balazs Koranyi
In a few short months the United States assumes Chair of the Arctic Council (AC). This is a two-year long opportunity to shape the future of the Arctic, an opportunity that will likely not come around…
Many in the West suddenly seem to think we’re on the road to a new Cold War. Talk of a return to the era of nuclear rivalry swirls around Russia’s muscular and belligerent grandstanding over Ukraine, and…
The first casualty of the Russian rouble crisis. Hint: it’s not Bruce Willis.
www.trustbank.ru
The dramatic slide in the value of the rouble has claimed its first banking casualty. Trust Bank is being bailed out by the Russian Central Bank to the tune of US$530m. The emergency liquidity line is…
The falling oil price might take some time to translate to lower prices at the bowser.
Julian Smith/AAP
While this year’s relative stability in crude oil prices appears to have lulled us into a false sense of security, the dramatic fall over the last few weeks reminds us just how volatile these prices can…
Russian President Putin blamed the West for his country’s economic troubles and collapsing ruble in a news conference.
Reuters
Russia’s currency is in free fall. Since mid-year, the incredible shrinking ruble has lost close to half its value, and it is anyone’s guess how much further it might go. Whatever happens, the geopolitical…
After seven years of planning, the South Stream pipeline that would carry gas from Russia to Europe via Bulgaria has been cancelled. After a long-running battle with the EU over the need for the pipeline…
Could tough talk, lead to tough action?
EPA/Sergei Chirikov
Vladimir Putin has delivered his annual press conference and at the top of the agenda was the Russian economy, reflecting that the turmoil buffeting the Russian rouble has reached critical levels. After…
Sanctions work. Russia’s problems may be manifold and closely related to the precipitous decline in the price of oil, but sanctions have played an important part in bringing Russia to its economic knees…
Will it put Russia in the black or red?
Nata789 via Shutterstock
Russia’s Central Bank has raised its key interest rate from 10.5% to 17% in an emergency move that is designed to halt the ongoing collapse of the rouble, which has accelerated in recent weeks. The dramatic…
Ten years ago, it was received wisdom in western academic, business and policy circles that Ukraine was an archetypal “captured state” – a state owned and run almost entirely by a small, insecure and fabulously…
Vladimir Putin with Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, in Baku in 2013.
EPA
For this latest instalment in our series on Russia’s relations with its neighbours, we turn to the oil-rich nation of Azerbaijan. Rovshan Ibrahimov argues that the country has rebounded from plumbing lows…
The rouble continues to slide against the US dollar and euro.
EPA/Yuri Kochetkov
Since the summer, the global price of oil has plummeted. After hovering above the US$100 per barrel level since 2010, prices have declined by around 40% in the space of just a few months. Brent crude has…
Moldova has gone to the polls in a vote seen as crucial for determining the country’s future direction. Preliminary results indicate that the pro-European parties together achieved about 44% of the vote…
Celebrations of Russia’s restored greatness are premature.
EPA/Alexander Zemlianichenko
Whether through improvisation, opportunism, fear or calculation, 2014 has seen a massive shift in the way political authority works in Russia. Moscow has moved dramatically away from a legal-rational way…
Time to start cleaning house.
EPA/Sergey Dolzhenko
In the year since the conflict in Eastern Ukraine began, more than 4,000 lives have been lost. Fighting continues despite the ceasefire agreement signed in September 2014 and the major powers involved…