Tag: russia

FSB Team of Chemical Weapon Experts Implicated in Alexey Navalny Novichok Poisoning – bellingcat A joint investigation between Bellingcat and The Insider, in cooperation with Der Spiegel and CNN, has discovered voluminous telecom and travel data that implicates Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) in the poisoning of the prominent Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny. via […]

The Life and COVID Death of a Revered Siberian Doctor In a chaotic and overwhelmed hospital, a physician received the kind of indifferent medical care he spent his life trying to overcome. via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/the-life-and-covid-death-of-a-revered-siberian-doctor Perhaps the most macabre proof of the dysfunction in Tomsk came when, according to local media, a family […]

In Nagorno-Karabakh Peace Deal, Putin Applied a Deft New Touch (Published 2020) The iron-fisted tactics used against Georgia and Ukraine seem to have fallen out of favor, replaced by a more subtle blend of soft power and an implicit military threat. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/01/world/europe/nagorno-karabakh-putin-armenia-azerbaijan.html “What else is to be done?” Mr. Mikaelyan asked, after taking another […]

Along Russia’s ‘Road of Bones,’ Relics of Suffering and Despair (Published 2020) The Kolyma Highway in the Russian Far East once delivered tens of thousands of prisoners to the work camps of Stalin’s gulag. The ruins of that cruel era are still visible today. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/22/world/europe/russia-stalin-gulag-kolyma-magadan.html More than a million prisoners traveled the road, both […]

Alexey Navalny Has the Proof of His Poisoning The Russian anti-corruption activist, who nearly died in August, talks about his recovery and his future. via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/alexey-navalny-has-the-proof-of-his-poisoning Because you think rationally. There are a million ways to isolate someone or kill them, but this is like some trashy thriller. I find myself living […]

Putin, Long the Sower of Instability, Is Now Surrounded by It (Published 2020) Fueled by the pandemic, uprisings in Belarus and Kyrgyzstan and a war in the Caucasus region are undermining the influence of the Russian leader. Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/07/world/europe/putin-belarus-kyrgyzstan-caucasus.html “For Putin, practically his entire mission and his vision of Russian greatness and success revolve around […]

The American Prisoner in Russia Trapped Between Putin and Trump The U.S. President and the bureaucracy reacted slowly to the arrest of Paul Whelan, who was declared a spy and sentenced to sixteen years in a Russian prison colony. via The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/the-american-prisoner-in-russia-trapped-between-putin-trump-and-thoroughly-soured-us-russian-relations For all their uncertainty about the exact origins of the case, […]

What Navalny’s Poisoning Really Says About the Current State of Putin’s Russia The most terrifying thing is not that Putin might have issued orders to kill perceived enemies but that anyone from the ruling circle can use the over-all dysfunction and impunity of Putin’s system to do so on their own. via The New Yorker: […]

Putin Chef’s Kisses of Death: Russia’s Shadow Army’s State-Run Structure Exposed – bellingcat Yevgeny Prigozhin can be described as the Renaissance man of deniable Russian black ops. An ex convict who served time for robbery, fraud and involving a minor in drinking and criminal activity, he began his legitimate business career in the 90s as a […]

Putin Chef’s Kisses of Death: Russia’s Shadow Army’s State-Run Structure Exposed – bellingcat Yevgeny Prigozhin can be described as the Renaissance man of deniable Russian black ops. An ex convict who served time for robbery, fraud and involving a minor in drinking and criminal activity, he began his legitimate business career in the 90s as a […]