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Russia Gives Syria a License to Kill - Gulf News

The Syrian government is delighted with the Russian veto of the draft UN Security Council resolution seeking an end to the violence in Syria. The draft resolution also called on Pr...

What's Russia Up to in Syria? - Michael Young, Daily Star

What strange tea are the Russians brewing in their diplomatic samovar? Foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, visited Damascus on Tuesday with the foreign intelligence chief, Mikhail Fra...

Freedom, With a Pit in Your Stomach - Thomas Friedman, New York Times

To observe the democratic awakenings happening in places like Egypt, Syria and Russia is to travel with a glow in your heart and a pit in your stomach....

A Post-American World? Not Quite - Victor Davis Hanson, National Review

As far as the 21st century goes, compared to the alternatives, it is more likely that we are in a pre-American than a post-American age....

Russia's Potemkin Democracy - Anne Applebaum, Washington Post

'Swift implementation of democratic reforms' is definitely an idea whose time has come - in Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as Damascus and Aleppo....

The China, Russia Factor in the U.S.-Iran Standoff - CSIS

US competition with Iran has become the equivalent of a game of three-dimensional chess, but a game where each side can modify at least some of the rules with each move. It is also...

A New UN, But for Good Guys - Jonah Goldberg, Los Angeles Times

A permanent global clubhouse for democracies based on shared principles would make it easier to aid growing movements....

Libya Success Makes Syria Harder - Joshua Foust, The Atlantic

The intervention in Libya -- often touted by advocates as a sterling example of how to intervene responsibly in a civil conflict to prevent atrocity -- has largely fallen off the...

Cold Snap Reveals Europe's Energy Crisis - Robin Mills, Foreign Policy

It is getting to be a European winter tradition. In 2006, 2009, and now again in 2012, temperatures plunge, and Russia interrupts its gas supplies. But while this spectacle is sadl...

Russia on the Wrong Side in Syria - The Guardian

Moscow must now set out how to broker a credible alternative to the Arab League plan that it has done so much to destroy....

Ice Under Putin Begins to Crack - Gideon Rachman, Financial Times

In Moscow at the moment, the most far-fetched idea of all is the notion that Vladimir Putin will still be running Russia in 2024....

The Consequences of Ousting Putin - Raymond Sontag, American Interest

In Moscow this Saturday thousands of people marched against fraudulent elections and the Putin regime. This was the third such mass protest since the December 4 parliamentary elect...

Russia, Iran Are Intervening, Why Not Us? - Michael Weiss, Telegraph

“Michael, I swear we are getting slaughtered.” I had asked Alaa al-Sheikh, the spokesman for the Khaled Bin Waleed brigade of Syrian rebels, to give me an overview of what’s...

Moscow Learns to Keep Out of the News - The Independent

In Moscow on Saturday tens of thousands of people came out, despite freezing temperatures, to demonstrate in favour of free, fair, but above all honest, elections. They were protes...

Russia May Get its Way on Iran, Too - Tony Karon, Time

Russia has drawn a line in the sand on Syria with implications for Western action against Iran....

Russia vs. the Arab Spring - Dmitri Trenin, Foreign Affairs

Syria is often called Russia’s last remaining ally in the Middle East, and Moscow’s continuing refusal to support the United States, the European Union, and the Arab Le...

Russian Protesters Up the Ante - Julia Ioffe, Foreign Policy

There were a few surprising things about Saturday's opposition protest in Moscow. For one thing, the cold -- a bitter -10 degrees Fahrenheit -- didn't seem to keep anyone at home. ...

Russia and China Must Not Shield Syria - Jerusalem Post

A UN veto says it all - Russia and China must not shield Assad any longer....

New START One Year Later - Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

February 5 marks the one-year anniversary of the New Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty's (New START) entry into force. Signed by the United States and Russia in April 2010, New...

Lost Lessons of Communism's Fall - Janet Daley, Daily Telegraph

If the European intellectual elite had not been so compromised by its own broad acceptance of collectivist beliefs, maybe we would have had a genuine, far-reaching re-apprais...

Sino-Russian Syria Veto a Realpolitik Win for West - Jon Kay, Nat'l Post

The Western powers enjoy the moral advantage of having campaigned publicly for a UN Security Council resolution that, in theory, would have encouraged a peaceful outcome in Syria...

Is Putin's Fake Rival the Real Deal? - Simon Shuster, Foreign Policy

Everyone thought billionaire playboy Mikhail Prokhorov was just a patsy for Vladimir Putin to run against and crush. But what if he wins?...

Russia: The 'Sort of, But Not Really' Country - Thomas Friedman, NY Times

Russia today is sort of a democracy, but not really. It’s sort of a free market, but not really. It's sort of got the rule of law to protect businesses, but not really. It'...

Will Russia Lose Georgia? - Fyodor Lukyanov, Russia in Global Affairs

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili finally got what he couldn’t get for several years: an official visit to the White House. President Obama has avoided his Georgian colleagu...

Russian Protests Echo U.S. Civil Rights Movement - Leon Aron, CSM

Like last year's Arab Spring, this winter's mass protests in Russia exhibit several hallmarks of people-powered democratic revolts. But to see the rallies over rigged leg...

Russia's Syrian Hypocrisy - Alexander Pannett, Egremont

Yesterday, diplomats at the UN Security Council were engaged in a concerted attempt to pass a resolution calling for President Bashar al-Assad to hand over power, which i...

Putin's Corrupt Elite Fear - Jamestown Foundation

This occasional report by Taras Kuzio examines Russian-Ukraine relations and the future of the Crimea as well as the port of Sevastopol, a key strategic naval base for the Russian ...

Syria Offers Chance to Weaken Iran - Charles Krauthammer, Wash Post

His fall would deprive Iran of an intra-Arab staging area and sever its corridor to the Mediterranean. Syria would return to the Sunni fold. Hezbollah, Tehran's agent in Lebanon,...

Russia Defending Interests in Mideast - Marwan Kabalan, Gulf News

Should the Al Assad regime fall, Turkey is set to benefit the most. For Moscow, this will change the balance of power from central Asia to Middle East....

The Collapse of the Putin Regime - Andrei Piontkovsky, Moscow Times

In Russia, disapproval of Vladimir Putin is quickly turning into mass-contempt....

From Russia, for Bashar's Eyes Only - Michael Young, Daily Star

The argument that Russia hopes to protect its stake in a future Syria is unconvincing. By holding on to Bashar Assad so stubbornly, despite the killing, the Russians are ensuring...

Why Russia Won't Back Down on Syria - Maksim Yusin, Kommersant

Even before Morocco officially proposed a UN Security Council resolution condemning the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, it was clear that Russia, which has ve...

The Politics of Dignity - Thomas Friedman, New York Times

You may think that the situations in Egypt and Russia have nothing in common. Think again. Yes, these two countries have starkly different histories. But having visited both in rec...

The 'Russification' of Italy - Stefano Casertano, The European

The resignation of Silvio may be compared to the collapse of the Berlin Wall: for Russia, that historical event marked the beginning of a decade of violence, poverty and geopolitic...

Syria: A Soviet Hangover Turned Headache - The Guardian

Russia inherited its Middle East presence from the Soviet Union. Is it about to lose its last ally in a newly democratised Arab world?...

Russia and China Provide Cover for Assad - Bessma Momani, Toronto Star

Russian and Chinese support for the Syrian regime will ensure two powerful Security Council vetoes to any resolution calling for armed intervention and toughened economic sanctio...

Is Prokhorov Really Challenging Putin? - Matthias Schepp, Der Spiegel

Before Mikhail Prokhorov leaves his mansion on the outskirts of Moscow to embark on his campaign, he has to walk past a black panther. The panther, made of heavy plastic, stands i...

Russia's Protests: An Awakening, Not a Revolution - IISS

A wave of anti-government protests in Russia in late 2011 has rocked its political establishment. United in anger at President Dmitry Medvedev's decision to cede his post to...

Russia Muscles Up - Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister of Russia

On March 4, the people of Russia will be going to the polls to elect a president of the country. Extensive discussions are currently underway across society....

Saving Syria Requires Russia's Cooperation - Washington Post

The government of Vladimir Putin is insisting that it will not support the removal of a regime that has been its primary ally in the Middle East. Yet if sustained, Moscow's intra...

Winter Descends on Putin's KGB State - Paul Roderick Gregory, Forbes

Russia’s “Moscow Winter” is eating away at Vladimir Putin’s KGB state, but it will survive. Putin will be reelected easily on March 4 for a six year term, but he will h...

Why Russia Defends Syria - Soner Cagaptay, Hurriyet Daily News

Russian foot-dragging is now a key barrier between the Syrian demonstrators and their prospective liberation from Bashar al-Assad’s rule. Even the timid Arab League has calle...

Arab World Must Get Tougher With Russia - Daily Star

Over the weekend we witnessed a dangerous intensifying of events in Syria: the freezing of the Arab League observer mission with team leaders citing safety reasons and a high numbe...

A New Perestroika in Russia? - Washington Post

Mr. Putin, who is up for a six-year-term as president in an election March 4, is behaving as if nothing in Russia has changed. Apart from publishing a bland article in a state ne...

Putinomics Isn't Worth Copying - Peter Passell, Foreign Policy

Vladimir Putin's claim to political legitimacy is closed tied to his record as the strongman who brought economic order and a modicum of prosperity out of the chaos of post-Soviet,...

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