Section: US & Canada
Russia halts gas flow to Ukraine as price talks fail
Both nations gave assurances dispute will not affect flow of Russian gas to Europe, EU official says. …read more Source: Toronto...
Seeking Refuge: Central Europe balks at refugees. But then there’s Ukraine.
Central Europe, and Poland in particular, could be key to easing the EU’s migrant crisis. The region has been cold to the idea of taking in refugees – but Ukraine conflict could force the issue. …read more Source: Christian Science...
Poroshenko Unveils Constitutional Changes
President Petro Poroshenko has proposed constitutional changes designed to give broader powers to Ukraine’s regions. …read more Source: Radio Free Europe / Radio...
The Fisherman’s Other Shoe Has Dropped
Good fiction can make history come alive; conceivably, sometimes, it may cause history to happen. If the latter is indeed conceivable, then Pope Francis I may have been invented by the Australian novelist Morris West in The Shoes of the Fisherman (1963). The novel was made into an American movie in 1968. (Francis was then thirty-two years old....
Russia’s Prosecutor General to Review Legality of Baltics Independence
The office of Russia’s Prosecutor General is reviewing the legality of independence granted to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in 1991 by the State Council of the former Soviet Union. The move, announced by the office Tuesday, has alarmed the Baltic States and strained even further their increasingly tense ties with Moscow, since Russia...
Why the Armenian Spring Is Not Maidan 2.0
On June 19, 2015, protests broke out in the Armenian capital of Yerevan as demonstrators expressed opposition to President Serzh Sargsyan’s decision to raise electricity prices by 17% to 22%. Over the course of the next week, this initial episode of unrest blossomed into what many have described as a Maidan-style revolution, featuring...
Ukraine Snubs Russian Gas
Kiev turned off its Gazprom gas tap today, snubbing the Russian supplier in talks to negotiate a new contract as an interim deal expired. The two sides can’t agree on a price—Gazprom is offering $247 per thousand cubic meters, roughly a $40 discount, while Ukraine is holding out for a better bargain and more favorable terms. Reuters...
Drone video appears to show Russian military base in eastern Ukraine
DONETSK, Ukraine —Ukrainian fighters on Tuesday published a drone video that they claimed shows a Russian military base hidden near the front lines in war-torn eastern Ukraine. See also: Ukraine’s children of war The video, posted to YouTube by the Kiev-backed Dnipro-1 volunteer regiment, shows a large, fortified military encampment spread...
A Grim Meme Casts a Spotlight on Internet Censorship in Russia
On June 15, not long after Jeanna Friske, a prominent Russian singer, died of brain cancer at the age of 40, someone posted a grim meme about her on MDK, a popular group on the Russian social media site, VK. The meme consisted of a photo of Friske and a sentence playing on a line from one of her hit singles: Instead of “I have never been to...
Attitudes toward the US have never been worse in post-Soviet Russia
It’s no secret that Russian-American relations have severely cooled over the last year. In fact, an opinion poll led by Moscow-based Levada Center revealed that over 80% of Russians have a negative view of the United States, almost double what it was like a year ago, the Washington Post reports. The attitudes of Russians toward Americans...
