On-line Intelligence Bulletin of the European Press Agency
By Nina Bachkatov and Andrew Wilson
For months the question was not “Will he or not?” but “when”?. Vladimir Putin finally announced his candidacy to be the next president at a place and a moment nobody expected – on 6 December, in a factory, outside Moscow. Continue reading “Finally he did it”
By Nina Bachkatov and Andrew Wilson
Finally, President Putin has decided once again to keep his cards under his sleeve up to the last minute. Continue reading “The discreet candidate”
By Nina Bachkatov and Andrew Wilson
No doubts, the Kremlin is happy with the results of the 10 September municipal and regional elections. The opposition is not unhappy either. Continue reading “Russian voters open the field”
By Andrew Wilson and Nina Bachkatov
President Putin wanted to ‘hang Mikheil Saakashvili by the balls’; president Poroshenko declared him stateless – a more classical way to get rid of a trouble maker, a charade for the West and an indirect success for Moscow. Continue reading “Misha’s paradoxical end”
By Nina Bachkatov
The continuing calm of Chinese-Russia relations is the subject of a recent study in Survival (Survival, Feb.-Mar. 2017), the bi-monthly journal of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. The article’s writers* focus on the way in which the two countries have avoided any turbulence that might have resulted from their imbalanced economic and strategic relationship. Continue reading “Russia and China, a New Model of Great-Power Relations”
By Nina Bachkatov and Andrew Wilson
As hundreds of people arrested on 12 June begin to appear in tribunal courts throughout Russia, the events of that day begin to offer a picture of the opposition developing under Alexei Navalny. The demonstrations were a test to confirm whether success of previous rallies on 26 March had been an accident or the signal of a permanent climate of mobilisation. It was also a test of whether the Kremlin’s determination is the sign of a personal challenge between two men, Vladimir Putin and Alexei Navalny. Continue reading “Navalny’s challenge”
By Nina Bachkatov and Andrew Wilson
The meeting between presidents Macron and Putin was a demonstration of cultural diplomacy at its best. Culture and history provided a key background to this first meeting between the presidents of two countries whose diplomatic relations had suffer of the general Western distaste towards Putin’s Russia. Continue reading “Moscow-Versailles”