There is an old Ukrainian saying – if you chase two rabbits, you will not catch either one. This adage can apply to politics, and it has particular relevancy these days for Mikheil Saakashvili, the erstwhile president of Georgia who ...
Death and rebirth in contemporary Ukrainian journalism
As with every other analyst, activist, journalist, critic and pundit involved with Ukrainian politics, it was with extreme sadness and trepidation that I heard about the assassination of Pavel Sheremet. The prominent investigative reporter for the respected Ukrayinska Pravda had been driving ...
В Лондоне обсудили, как бороться с коррупцией в Казахстане
Поэтому лично мы отстаивали другую точку зрения: деньги, признанные грязными, ни в коем случае нельзя возвращать в бюджеты тех стран, откуда они были выведены. Нельзя возвращать ворованные деньги в страну, где коррупция и воровство чиновников остается первоочередной проблемой. Этим мы ...
Putin’s quest for glory at any cost
The doping scandal is the latest in a string of misadventures in Putin’s pursuit of Soviet-style greatness. On November 10, the story of Russia’s state-organised athletic doping programme exploded on to front pages worldwide. Apparently, the scale is so egregious ...
ON THE UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT SIGNING A LAW HONORING WWII UKRAINIAN NATIONALISTS
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has finally signed a highly controversial law honoring as fighters for Ukrainian independence, among others, the notorious Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and its military wing the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). This law not only recognizes ...
Bitter end for Kazakhstan’s sugar czar
The ignominious end of Rakhat Aliyev, Kazakhstan’s most feared man, heir apparent, sugar czar, fugitive. On the morning of February 24, the warden of Vienna’s Josefstadt prison announced the suicide by hanging of his most notorious inmate. Rakhat Aliyev, former ...
Boris Nemtsov’s last walk
Did Boris Nemtsov, the bogeyman of Russia’s rising nationalism, push his luck by provoking Putin repeatedly? You could see his tall imposing frame and handsome face towering over his comrades-in-arms in the front line of anti-Kremlin demonstrations that rumbled down ...
Is Putin going all the way in Ukraine?
Ukraine stands on the precipice of war as pressure mounts on Putin, seen as ‘saviour’ of the Eastern Slavic world. On May 4, in New York, a panel was held at the PEN International Literature Festival, devoted to the fall ...
Eastern Ukraine: A new pawn in Putin’s dangerous game
By issuing ultimatums and then failing to follow up, Kiev has further emboldened the rabble-rousers. A city mayor is placed under house arrest and held incommunicado, a local and then a foreign journalist get kidnapped, and three bodies are pulled ...
Ukraine crisis: Will the drumbeat lead to war?
Even without an armed conflict, Russia’s Crimean adventure has set it on a course of protracted collision with the West. The scene in the Kremlin’s opulent St George’s Hall on March 18 could have come straight from a Soviet TV ...