Putin

The Ukraine Quandary: Assessing Conservative Resistance to Further Financial Commitments

Antonio Graceffo

The conflict has imposed significant economic strain, with escalating fuel and food prices affecting numerous countries. The continuous stream of news detailing the horrors of the war can lead to emotional desensitization for many individuals. Media coverage of the conflict has either diminished or become lost in the background noise of the overly saturated media landscape. Even discussions about funding allocations are losing their audience.

The War in Ukraine, Russia, and the Price of Gas

Antonio Graceffo

The value of a country’s currency is highly correlated with the GDP. Before the Ukraine invasion, oil and gas accounted for about 21.7 percent of Russia’s GDP. By December, it had dropped to 18 percent of GDP. Although the ruble plummeted, immediately after the invasion, by summer, it had rallied, because it seemed that Europe had not found a way to do without Russian energy. Meanwhile, Ukraine refused to surrender, dragging out the war, handing Russia defeat after defeat, and the sanctions became ever tighter, driving down the value of the ruble.

The New Great Game and Shifting Alliances: U.S., India, Russia, China, and Pakistan

Antonio Graceffo

The original Great Game was played out in the 19th Century, between Britain and Russia in Afghanistan, an ever-shifting military, economic, and geopolitical competition, which often took the form of proxy wars, with the great powers backing local forces, to fight one another. Today, the region is host to an even larger and more complex Great Game, with implications for the fate of the modern world, as it is being played out between several of the world’s largest, nuclear-capable, armies: the United States, India, Russia, China, and Pakistan.

Trump’s Incriminating Tweet and Michael Flynn’s Plea

Steven Harper

Trump’s national security adviser-designate Mike Flynn — in consultation with a senior official of the Trump transition team later identified as K. T. McFarland — spoke to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about newly imposed US sanctions for election interference. Flynn’s mission was to persuade Kislyak that the Trump administration would reward Putin for a restrained response, and he succeeded.

The Panama Papers: Why They Matter

Angelo Franco

Over the course of a few months, the anonymous source—who aptly named himself John Doe in his initial correspondence with the German newspaper—continued to pass information to Süddeutsche Zeitung surpassing what the newspaper had originally expected. Ultimately, Süddeutsche Zeitung  received over 2.6 terabytes of data, making this the biggest leak that journalists have ever had to work with.  

Congress Stands By as Number of Jobless Americans Grows

Charles D. Ellison

More than 2.2 million Americans are barely getting by after most of their extended unemployment benefits were abruptly cut over the Christmas break. In fact, Congress and the president skipped town for restful, holiday vacations soon after. Hopes of a post-New Year’s Day resolution were dashed by stalls and foot-dragging in the Senate, which is finally taking a vote this week. But, a nastier, unsympathetic House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is signaling that he’s not interested in bringing it to the floor for a vote. 

Vladimir Putin, the Crimea, and Double Standards

Charles Crawford

Moves to separate Crimea from Ukraine do not meet that standard. The rest of Ukraine has not given its consent to transferring Crimea to Russian sovereignty. Hence Russia’s humiliating defeat in the UN Security Council on 16 March. Not one Security Council member voted on Russia’s side. No state wants to see new precedents that call into question its own control of its own territory.President Putin’s bluntly (or brazenly) opened by asserting that international law was on his side.

Russia vs. Greenpeace: The Battle for the Arctic

Zahra Hirji

An environmental organization with a $350 million war chest, a giant protest vessel, 28 activists and a rubber raft have succeeded in drawing Russian President Vladimir V. Putin into a very public global dispute. Attention is now focused on the Greenpeace activists who were arrested last month by Coast Guard agents for trying to hang a protest banner on an Arctic Ocean oil platform and whether they will languish in prison for up to 15 years each on dubious piracy charges.

The Fear of Working as a Journalist in Putin’s Russia

Valeriya Fedorenko

I am 23. I have worked in the press in the city of Vladivostok for seven years. I live in Vladimir Putin’s Age. Sometimes I ask myself: “What will I tell my grandkids about these times?” I will tell them that in 2006, when I had just turned 18, the famous Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was gunned down in full daylight. And her death sent a clear message to all independent media in Russia. “Stop writing for newspapers. Find another job. Journalists are being killed in Russia.” That’s what my relatives and friends who remember life in the former Soviet Union and what it was like to criticize the authorities often tell me.

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