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12 Things You Should Know about the Agreement in Ukraine
An agreement was brokered by EU leaders between Ukraine’s ruling party and the opposition. That agreement, however, was broken the day after it was signed…
Security
Introduction to Conflict in the Post-Soviet Space
As the Soviet Union crumbled, it left behind ethnically, linguistically, and culturally diverse successor states. As these states tried to form domestic policies and governing…
Why the Terrorists Chose Volgograd
I have seen several articles now comment on the reasoning that terrorists might have employed in choosing to target the Russian city of Volgograd three…
Russian MiniLessons: Civil War in Syria
The <strong>сирийский</strong> <strong>кризис</strong> (Syrian crisis) is a conflict between <strong>п</strong><strong>овстанцы</strong> (rebels) who are seeking to <strong>свергнуть</strong> <strong>правительство</strong> (oust the government) and <strong>проправительственные</strong> <strong>силы</strong> (pro-government forces)….
Russian MiniLessons: Political Asylum and Related Russian Vocabulary
The following bilingual Russian MiniLesson is meant to build your vocabulary by providing Russian phrases within English text. Hover over the bold Russian to reveal…
The Armenian Colonies in Ukraine: Conflict, Cooperation, and Assimilation
The early modern period from 1500-1800 has been focused upon in recent scholarship as a unique era separated from the medieval and the modern. This…
Historical Context and Modern Demands: Reinterpreting Linguistic Human Rights in Ukraine
The concept of human rights in an international context and on the scale that exists today did not come into being until the 20th century….
Russian MiniLessons: Землетрясения и российской помощи – Earthquakes and Russian Foreign Aid
The following bilingual Russian MiniLesson is meant to build your vocabulary by providing Russian phrases within English text. Hover over the bold Russian to reveal…
The Soviet Union in Angola: Soviet and African Perspectives on the Failed Socialist Transformation
Africa’s drive for independence came to a head by the 1960s, at the height of the Cold War. It was seen by the Soviet Union…
Ordinary Men? Collaboration and Resistance in Occupied Mogilevskaya Oblast’
The subject of collaboration and resistance in occupied Europe is one of the most controversial issues related to the history of the Second World War….
The State of the Russian Navy: History and Prospectives
Russia has had a long historical tradition of a strong military and a special pride in its naval forces. From Peter the Great to the…
Russian MiniLessons: Ссориться по-русски – Fighting in Russian
The following bilingual Russian MiniLesson is meant to build your vocabulary by providing Russian phrases within English text. Hover over the bold Russian to reveal…
Russian MiniLessons: Органы = Security Forces (FSB and Spies)
The following bilingual Russian MiniLesson is meant to build your vocabulary by providing Russian phrases within English text. Hover over the bold Russian to reveal…
Politics in the Former Soviet Union: A Personal View from an American born of Russian Immigrants
On December 3, 2007 I awoke with a hangover, even though I had not imbibed the night before. The evening of December 2 was my…
From the Silk Road to Chevron: The Geopolitics of Oil Pipelines in Central Asia
Kazakhstan has received much press recently as a result of the success of the comic film Borat. However, that movie got everything wrong in its depiction…
Kyrgyzstan’s Energy Alternatives: Between Scylla and Charybdis
Russia has often been accused recently of “energy blackmail,” using its large hydrocarbon reserves to gain political influence in countries which are dependent on energy…
Russia’s Shrunken Air Defense Perimeter
In recent months political disputes between Russia and the United States have grown to include sharp differences over Washington’s expanding plans for ballistic missile defense…
The Rise of Economic Nationalism under Globalization and the Case of Post-Communist Russia
Across the globe, trends of nationalization and economic nationalism have crept into the policies of nation-states recently. Fueled by popular nationalist sentiment, state elites from…
Empire, Nationalities, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union
Michael Doyle defines empires as follows: “Empires are relationships of political control imposed by some political societies over the effective sovereignty of other political societies.”[1]…
Languages in Conflict: The Case of Russia and Estonia
On a park bench in Moscow, I befriended a lively group of young actors from Tallinn, Estonia. They had come to Russia three years earlier…