Russia

When Politics Becomes an Olympic Sport

By Ashish Kumar Sen

No matter how deft the backflips or how swift the skaters, Korean unity will likely grab the spotlight (and news headlines) at the 2018 Winter Olympics which open in Pyeongchang, South Korea, on February 9. That is because athletes from North and South Korea will march together under a unified flag at the opening ceremony […]

The View from Inside a Donetsk Prison

By Matthew Kupfer

When Russian-led separatists seized control of Donetsk in 2014, Ihor Kozlovsky did what many residents of the city were doing: he stayed put. But unlike others, Kozlovsky was not a supporter of the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic” (DNR). In fact, he was a Ukrainian patriot, a professor and world-renowned expert of comparative religion at Donetsk […]

Donald Trump Is Not the Only One Who Likes a Grand Parade

By Ashish Kumar Sen

US President Donald J. Trump wants a military parade—a grand military parade. Trump, reportedly inspired by the Bastille Day parade he witnessed in Paris last summer, has asked the Pentagon to organize a parade down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington that [wait for it] tops the French. The reaction to Trump’s plan has ranged from skepticism […]

A Plan to Thwart Russian Meddling

US Rep. Will Hurd [R-TX] has a strategy to check Russian meddling in the midterm elections later this year and the US Department of Homeland Security would have a pivotal role in that plan. “We have a model that we should be thinking about when countering disinformation, and that’s CVE: Countering Violent Extremism,” said Hurd, […]

Will Russia Reinterpret International Law and Get Away With It?

By James J. Coyle

Russia’s disinformation activities have reached a new level: the government is now attempting to reinterpret international law. And the international community appears to be largely ignoring these audacious, unlawful efforts. The latest effort began on January 14 when the first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee for CIS Affairs, Konstantin Zatulin, acknowledged that Russia […]

Documentary Reveals All that Glitters in Russia Is Not Gold

By Diane Francis

Russian corruption will cast its shadow over South Korea’s Winter Olympics that will be held between February 9 and 25. For decades, the Games, notably the winter ones, have handed Russia its greatest public relations coups. Unable to deliver decent living standards or democracy to its people, the Kremlin has concentrated instead on gold medals […]