The Failure of Tatar Language Revival
For minority nationalist activists at the dawn of perestroika, the decline of titular languages was one of the most pressing problems facing their republics. By the late 1980s, minority languages…
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Gorenburg
186 posts
Russia’s Muslims: A Growing Challenge for Moscow
In dealing with Russia’s Muslim minority, the government in Moscow is facing a challenge that is likely to become more serious in coming years. By most estimates, self-identified Muslims make…
The 2002 Russian Census and the Future of the Russian Population
Throughout the 1990s, Russian and Western demographers competed over who could produce the gloomiest forecast of Russian population trends for the coming decades. Highly respected demographers argued that the population of the…
The View of Russian Electoral Reforms from Russia’s Ethnic Republics
President Putin’s proposal to eliminate gubernatorial elections throughout Russia caught the leaders of Russia’s ethnic republics by surprise. Although it was widely known that such ideas had been circulating in the…
Russian warships head off on exercise, not to prop up Assad
The Russian Navy recently announced that it is sending a number of warships to conduct exercises in the Mediterranean. What’s more, these ships are expected to stop in Tartus,…
Predictions on Future Russian Air Force Procurement
In a post on his blog, Ilya Kramnik today made a set of predictions regarding upcoming procurement plans for the Russian air force. Here’s a translation: Combat aircraft: a…
New Report on Russian Interests in Syria, Part 2: Russian Arms Sales
I’ve covered Russian arms exports to Syria on this blog before, but the CAST report has some useful new information on this topic. Barabanov and Aliev note that Russian…
New Report on Russian Interests in Syria, Part 1: Russian Motivations
The Russian defense think tank CAST has produced a new report on Russian interests in Syria, by Mikhail Barabanov and Ruslan Aliev. This report largely supports my recent contention that…
Syria, Russia, the US, and the Implications of those Helicopters…
Josh Tucker from The Monkey Cage asked me to comment on the Russian helicopters supposedly heading to Syria. Here’s what I wrote: Yesterday’s statement by Hillary Clinton that Russia…
The million man army does not exist
For months, I’ve been arguing that the Russian military does not actually have the one million soldiers that it officially lists as serving in its ranks. A recent article…