Paul
Goble
Staunton, June 2 -- The flood of news
stories from a country as large, diverse and strange as the Russian Federation
often appears to be is far too large for anyone to keep up with. But there
needs to be a way to mark those which can’t be discussed in detail but which
are too indicative of broader developments to ignore.
Consequently, Windows on Eurasia each week
presents a selection of 13 of these other and typically neglected stories at
the end of each week. This is the 85th such compilation, and it is
again a double issue. Even then, it is only suggestive and far from complete,
but perhaps one or more of these stories will prove of broader interest.
1. Putin Issues New Non-Denial Denial on Russian
Interference in US Elections. Vladimir Putin shift positions on Russian
interference in the US elections from a flat denial that Moscow had no role to
a Nixonian non-denial denial in which he said that the Russian state didn’t but
that “patriotic” Russian hackers might have, although he discounted the notion
that hackers and bloggers could influence the outcome of elections anywhere as
they certainly don’t in Russia (graniru.org/Politics/Russia/President/m.261359.html, segodnya.ua/world/putin-opyat-vstupilsya-za-rossiyskih-hakerov-oni-lyudi-svobodnye-kak-hudozhniki-1026299.html), and dsnews.ua/world/putin-reshil-otmazat-svoih-hakerov-oni-dazhe-na-vybory-01062017133500). Putin’s most controversial move of the week,
however, came elsewhere: he meet with the head of Russia’s Old Believers,
something no Russian ruler has done since the 17th century, and an
action that has infuriated many Russian Orthodox faithful, who suggested that
Old Believers had worked for the Bolsheviks against the Moscow church (newsland.com/community/129/content/sloboda-sovesti-zachem-vladimir-putin-priekhal-k-staroobriadtsam/5854260 and ruskline.ru/news_rl/2017/05/29/aktivnymi_uchastnikami_bolshevistskogo_terrora_protiv_cerkvi_byli_staroobryadcy/).
In addition, Putin made a number of comments about the world that merit being
recorded: He said that cultural multiplicity in Russia is important as long as
it does nothing to harm national unity (asiarussia.ru/news/16459/). He said it is useless to try to “contain Russia” (newsland.com/community/7370/content/putin-sderzhivat-rossiiu-bespolezno/5855470). And he said that he completely trusts those who
guard him around the clock (echo.msk.ru/blog/day_video/1992398-echo/). But despite his still sky-high approval ratings,
there was some evidence that the Kremlin leader may not occupy the unchallenged
position he did: A picture showing that even dogs are repelled by him went
viral on the Russian Internet (dsnews.ua/society/dazhe-sobake-protivno-v-seti-vysmeyali-novoe-foto-putina-29052017110000),
and a leading human rights activists said that Putin should retire to a
monastery in order to reflect upon his sins (ixtc.org/2017/05/sergey-kovalev-pust-putin-pokaetsya-i-postrizhetsya-v-monahi/).
2. The Putin-Trump Bromance Returns. Vladimir Putin said that one of Donald Trump’s
most impressive qualities is that unlike most politicians, the US president is “sincere,”
something the Kremlin leader says he highly values (ura.news/news/1052291721). But because of the twists and turns in Moscow’s
official position on Trump, some Russians do not appear to have gotten the word
about this latest uptick in affection. One commentator pointed out to his
readers that “America is not with us and Trump is not ours” (ruskline.ru/analitika/2017/05/29/amerika_ne_s_nimi_no_i_tramp_ne_nash/). But most Russians appeared this week to be
devoting most attention to Trump’s typo in one tweet, with “covfefe” becoming
not only a meme in Russia but a brand name there as well (ura.news/news/1052291718 and profile.ru/obsch/item/117605-covfefe).
3.
Russian Economy
Getting Better, Officials Say, But Russian Incomes Continue to Fall. Russian officials this week repeatedly
suggested, picking up on Vladimir Putin’s line, that the Russian economy is
showing “positive dynamics.” But
improved incomes for Russians aren’t one of them: those continue to fall (kommersant.ru/doc/3313488). Major factories are now laying off workers (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=592FD051CCA71), wage arrears are spreading across the economy (newsland.com/community/4109/content/dolgi-po-zarplate-pered-rabotnikami-sibneftegeofiziki-prevyshaiut-60-mln-rublei/5850870), prices for basic goods are rising and a third of
Russians are now cutting back on such foodstuffs (rufabula.com/news/2017/05/29/save-money and newizv.ru/news/omy/31-05-2017/v-rossii-podorozhali-vodka-sol-karamel-i-kartofel), six million Russians have fallen into “debt
slavery” as they now much pay more than 50 percent of their incomes to bankers
to service loans (http://krizis-kopilka.ru/archives/41329), and the Russian government is considering a plan
to confiscate housing from those who owe more than 4,000 US dollars on their
mortgages (newsland.com/community/129/content/izymat-edinstvennoe-zhile-predlozheno-pri-dolge-bolshe-200-000-rublei/5846480). But perhaps the worst news for Russians came in
comparisons with other countries and the past. Chinese pay now exceeds Russian
on average by a third (newsland.com/community/4109/content/sredniaia-zarplata-kitaitsev-prevysila-rossiiskuiu-na-tret/5853991) and there has been no net increase in Russians’ average
pay relative to prices since 1913 (newizv.ru/article/general/28-05-2017/demura-zarplaty-i-tseny-v-rossii-v-1913-i-v-2017-nichego-ne-izmenilos).
Moreover, there were increasing reports that government subsidies in Russia are
hurting rather than helping the economy (rbc.ru/newspaper/2017/05/29/5926b8d89a7947207fb06e9c)
and that Russia’s younger generation are condemned to poverty for the
foreseeable future (newsland.com/user/1637669351/content/pochemu-nasha-molodezh-obrechena-na-bednost/5846014).
4. Hungry Russians Urged Not to Steal Nuts Squirrels have
Buried.
Yet another indication of how bad things are in some parts of Russia is a sign
in Omsk urging hungry Russians not to dig up for their own consumption nuts
that squirrels have buried for their food (bk55.ru/news/article/101433/). More generally, begging is now spreading
across the Russian urban landscape, sparking complaints about the Russian
Orthodox Church for building new facilities even as people go hungry (forum-msk.org/material/region/13258397.html
and newsland.com/community/3550/content/vyvikh-dushi/5850025).
Other developments on the social front include: Patriarch Kirill says gay
marriage is fascist (dsnews.ua/society/patriarh-kirill-rasskazal-kirgizam-o-shodstve-gey-brakov-29052017111900),
post offices are at risk of closing in many rural villages (rosbalt.ru/russia/2017/05/29/1618950.html), half of the road accidents in Orenburg oblast are
the result of bad roads, a pattern likely true elsewhere as well (regnum.ru/news/accidents/2282967.html), physical abuse within families continues to be
high, falling a few places but rising in others (izvestia.ru/news/721388, politsovet.ru/55471-tret-rossiyan-podderzhivaet-pravo-bit-detey.html and politsovet.ru/55479-v-sverdlovskoy-oblasti-zafiksirovan-rost-semeynogo-nasiliya.html), and the interior ministry wants a new law
introducing the presumption of trust in the actions of the police following a
massive outcry against police actions against a boy in Moscow who was simply
declaiming Shakespeare (echo.msk.ru/news/1991874-echo.html and novayagazeta.ru/news/2017/06/01/132084-v-mvd-nazvali-pravomernymi-deystviya-politseyskih-pri-zaderzhanii-rebenka-v-moskve).
5. Moscow Gives Foreigners a Right It Doesn’t Give Its
Own Non-Russians.
The Russian government has announced that it will allow foreigners studying in
Russian universities the right to defend their dissertations in their own language,
a right Moscow has not consistently extended to its own non-Russians in theirs
(regnum.ru/news/society/2283294.html). Among other developments on the nationalities and
regional front are the readiness of young Circassians to exploit officially
permitted groups to push their own anti-Moscow agendas (oc-media.org/unambitious-state-backed-circassian-groups-hide-a-growing-nationalism-in-young-circassians/),
the triumph in Cannes of a film about the love between a Karbardin and a Jew (onkavkaz.com/news/1707-lyubov-kabardinca-i-evreiki-pokorila-kanny-mir-uznal-dushnuyu-tesnotu-adygov-balkarcev-i-cheche.html?fromslider),
reports of continuing extremely high infant and child mortality in the North
Caucasus (kavkazr.com/a/dinamika-mladencheskoi-smertnosti-na-severnom-kavkaze-i-v-tselom-po-rf/28522702.html), the Buryats now have a Vkontakte page in their
national language (nazaccent.ru/content/24224-socset-vkontakte-perevedut-na-buryatskij-yazyk.html), and police arrest and beat regionalist activists
in Kaliningrad (ixtc.org/2017/05/kaliningradskie-separatisty-izbity-i-arestovany/ and afterempire.info/2017/05/30/bars/).
6. Monuments to Solzhenitsyn and Dzerzhinsky Go Up in
Same Week. In a perfect reflection of Russia’s problems
with its own past, monuments to dissident writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and
Cheka founder Feliks Dzerzinsky went up in the same week sparking controversy
among those who objected to one or the other (newsland.com/community/4109/content/rezonans-v-obshchestve-kak-otvet-na-ustanovku-pamiatnika-a-solzhenitsynu/5854748, newsland.com/community/politic/content/v-kirove-ustanoviat-pamiatnik-dzerzhinskomu/5847776 and newsland.com/community/6399/content/v-rostove-ustanoviat-pamiatnik-pisateliu-solzhenitsynu/5853241). Meanwhile,
conflicts continued to swirl around both the Yeltsin Center in Yekaterinburg
and the St. Isaac’s cathedral in St. Petersburg whose interim director quit
after only three days in office (newsland.com/community/3782/content/samaia-bolshaia-lozh-eltsina-pro-stalina/5853722 and republic.ru/posts/83580). And activists published a set of photographs on
the remains of Stalin-era GULAG camps (nlo-mir.ru/giblzone/52191-ostanki-gulaga.html).
7.
Entire Russian
Village Declares Hunger Strike to Protest Environmental Damage. All the
residents of a village near Moscow have declared a hunger strike in order to
attract the attention of officials to the actions of a local plant that is
destroying the environment where they live (forum-msk.org/material/news/13277391.html). Despite some reports that Russians are ever less
willing to take part in meetings whether they are officially permitted or not (echo.msk.ru/programs/personalno/1989429-echo/), ever more of them appear to be protesting on ever
more issues in ever more places. Among those this week: demonstrations in
Moscow, Volgograd and other cities against bans on protests (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/303575/ and rufabula.com/news/2017/06/01/luzhniki), repeated protests calling for the outster of local
officials (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=592BCD4BC2623),
student demonstrations in Kaluga (kp.ru/daily/26684/3708146/), Chelyabinsk protests against the local
children’s ombudsman (newsland.com/community/4765/content/v-cheliabinske-roditeli-vyidut-s-aktsiei-a-protiv-detskogo-ombudsmena-kuznetsovoi/5851180), and Voronezh protests against corruption (ixtc.org/2017/05/voronezh-vystupil-protiv-korruptsii-i-zelenki/). Russians
are joining protests, analysts say, not only because they have no other way to
make their views heard given the official stranglehold on elections but also
because they pick up support from broader groups for their particular causes
and perhaps most important they are leading officials to back down, at least in
part, as in the case of the protests against the demolition of the khrushchoby
in Moscow (nazaccent.ru/content/24211-nacionalisty-vyshli-na-miting-protiv-renovacii.html and newizv.ru/news/city/26-05-2017/shag-vpered-dva-shaga-nazad-kak-menyaetsya-proekt-renovatsii-moskvy).
8.
In Supplemental
Budget, Putin Allocates Six Times as Much for MVD as for Education. In a clear indication of his priorities and perhaps
his fears, Vladimir Putin is allocating six times as much in additional funding
for the interior ministry as for Russia’s schools (newsru.com/russia/29may2017/popravki.html). His Russian Guard is also attracting criticism for
its restoration of the names “Dzerzhinsky” and “Red Banner” for its subunits (newsland.com/community/politic/content/rosgvardiia-vozvrashchaet-imia-dzerzhinskogo-i-krasnoe-znamia/5852349). More seriously, the defense ministry wants to block
soldiers from using social media accounts (newsland.com/community/5652/content/minoborony-rf-vzialos-za-akkaunty-v-sotssetiakh/5854470). But there is
one “bright” spot in Russia’s security build up: it is helping some distant
regions to reverse population declines by bringing in more military personnel
and those who support them (thebarentsobserver.com/en/security/2017/05/military-towns-kola-peninsula-are-population-winners).
9. Russia Now a Country Whose Rockets Don’t Work and
Whose Cosmodrome is Empty. The Kremlin
has long been famous for having a cannon that never fired and a bell that never
rang, but now Russia is becoming a country whose rockets don’t work because of
a lack of spare parts and whose cosmodrome has dropped working because of back
pay disputes, lack of funds for equipment and other problems (zelenyikot.com/vostochnaya-angara/,
newsland.com/community/4788/content/rossiiskii-samolet-ms-21-okazalsia-sovetskim-s-amerikanskimi-dvigateliami/5852938, novayagazeta.ru/news/2017/05/29/131962-stroiteli-vostochnogo-nachali-zabastovku-iz-za-nevyplaty-zarplaty
and kommersant.ru/doc/3305139).
Meanwhile, in other defense-related developments, some Moscow analysts say
Russia doesn’t have the funds to carry out Putin’s defense plans (forum-msk.org/material/economic/13258694.html),
others suggest Moscow’s effort to build helicopter carriers is condemned to
failure in advance (svpressa.ru/war21/article/173549/), and there
are reports that Moscow’s military losses in Syria are mounting even though
Russia media remains largely silent on the details (newsland.com/community/7994/content/rossiiskaia-armiia-v-sirii-neset-tiazhelye-poteri/5846333).
At home, an outbreak of hepatitis at a Russian base in the Far East has
attracted attention as evidence of continuing problems with food for servicemen
(khabarovsk.md/news/7779-habarovskiy-kray-prarodina-chuchhe-i-gepatit-v-voinskoy-chasti.html and sobkorr.ru/news/593114588093A.html). Perhaps
because of all these problems with conventional weaponry and soldiers, Moscow
has launched a program to test white wales for possible use against Western
ships in the Arctic (siberiantimes.com/other/others/features/russia-sea-tests-white-whales-for-military-purposes-in-arctic-waters-tv-zvezda/).
10. Russian
Government Budget Increasingly Classified.
Russians will know ever less about what their government is doing now that the
Kremlin has classified an ever-increasing share of the budget (rbc.ru/economics/30/05/2017/592c51089a79470ca167f68b?from=main). And even pro-Kremlin deputies are complaining that
the statistics they are given are unreliable about important social issues (newsland.com/community/5862/content/mizulina-tass-sfalsifitsirovalo-tsifry-iziatii-detei/5855435).
11. First Deputy
Charged with ‘Crime’ of Meeting with His Electorate. A
Moscow city deputy has been charged with the crime of meeting with voters in
his constituency something new laws say constitute a meeting without permission
(kasparov.ru/material.php?id=592FD3FC1D8B1). But as bad as that is, the situation may get
worse: a former Buryat official says that severe limits should be placed on
parliamentarians to discuss government-proposed measures (asiarussia.ru/news/16449/).
12. Russians Come Up with Workaround Drug for WADA Banned
One.
In yet another indication that Moscow won’t play by the rules unless forced to,
Russian medical researchers have come up with a drug that has the same athletic
ability enhancing properties as one that WADA has banned but that has a slightly
different chemical composition and thus should pass muster, Russian officials
say (izvestia.ru/news/719291). Other sports news from Russia this week was
equally discouraging: Moscow announced the introduction of special hotel registration
requirements for visitors to Federation Cup competition games (echo.msk.ru/news/1991602-echo.html), more details came out on the mistreatment of North
Koreans working on the World Cup venue in St. Petersburg (newsland.com/community/4765/content/severokoreitsy-v-severnoi-stolitse-kak-stroiatsia-obekty-k-chm-2018/5853507), there were more complaints about that stadium in
the Russian media, including suggestions that its field is unsafe for athletes
(http://polit.ru/article/2017/05/27/krestovsky/), and a past Russian Olympian has returned her medal
to the IOC because of what she says is the “low quality” of the metal it is
made of (newsland.com/community/5652/content/rossiiskaia-olimpiiskaia-chempionka-verniot-medali-iz-za-ikh-nizkogo-kachestva/5852232).
13. Political Pornography Comes to Moscow. After a Moscow
court ordered Aleksey Navalny to take down his film on corruption (rufabula.com/news/2017/05/31/navalny), Russia’s largest pornography site, Pornhub, agreed
to post it on its portal (newsland.com/community/4765/content/pornhub-opublikoval-na-svoem-saite-film-on-vam-ne-dimon/5853614). That led to two other developments: A Russian
parliamentarian proposed classifying pornography as a drug and requiring that
all those who want to view it to get a prescription from their doctors (spektr.press/news/2017/05/30/milonov-poprosil-priravnyat-pornograficheskuyu-produkciyu-k-lekarstvam/), and Pornhub provided the Russian government with
its access code to its “premium” services (versia.ru/pornxab-peredal-roskomnadzoru-10-promo-kodov-dlya-premium-dostupa-k-klubnichke).
14. Even Opposition Politicians are Dependent on Kremlin,
Kasparov Says.
Émigré Russian political leader Gary Kasparov says that even opposition
politicians in Russia are one way or another dependent on the Kremlin, an
indication of the ways in which Vladimir Putin effectively gelds many of them (nr2.lt/News/politics_and_society/-Kasparov-Dazhe-oppozicionnye-politiki-RF-tak-ili-inache-zavisyat-ot-Kremlya-125529.html).
15.
Ukrainian
Librarian in Moscow has Back Broken While in Police Custody.
The librarian of the now-closed Ukrainian library in Moscow had her back broken
while in Russian police custody. She is currently being tried for “extremism”
and is at risk of receiving a five-year term in a Russian prison (newsru.com/russia/27may2017/sharina1.html).
16.
An Anniversary
Moscow isn’t Marking.
Thirty years ago this week, West German pilot Matthias Rust landed his private
plane in Moscow’s Red Square on Border Guards Day, embarrassing the Soviet
defense system and setting the stage for Mikhail Gorbachev’s purge or it top
ranks (snob.ru/selected/entry/125019).
17.
Someone is Killing
Russia’s UFO Specialists. Russia has
many uniquely Russian problems as well as problems that many other countries
have. One problem that appears to straddle this divide surfaced this week: a
party or parties unknown is killing off that country’s small group of
specialists on unidentified flying objects (kp.ru/daily/26684.7/3707180/).
18.
One Russian
Reaction to Brzezinski’s Death: ‘Why Couldn’t It have Been McCain?’ Russian
nationalist commentator Yegor Kholmogorov reacted to the death of Zbigniew
Brzezinski, former US National Security Advisor and long-time specialist on
combatting Russian expansionism, by saying that his first thought was “why
couldn’t it have been [anti-Moscow US Senator John] McCain?” (politobzor.net/show-133263-v-ssha-skonchalsya-avtor-proekta-raschleneniya-rossii.html).
19.
Massive Vacancies
in Upper Reaches of Russian Court System. While the Russian judicial system
is notorious for not being about justice but rather about carrying out the will
of those in power (politsovet.ru/55475-sudy-i-vybory-v-rossii-ne-interesno-i-dazhe-ne-smeshno.html), its ability to function even in that capacity is
now at risk because of the enormous number of vacancies on appellant courts (kommersant.ru/doc/3305138).
20.
Moscow Should have
80 Mosques, Russian Muslim Leader Says.
Ravil Gainutdin, head of the Union of Muftis of Russia (SMR), says that
Moscow should have 80 mosques rather than the six it now does to bring it into
line with world cities like Beijing and Berlin which have almost that many
despite having far fewer Muslims (business-gazeta.ru/article/347066).
21. Russia Rated a Greater Threat to the World than Iran
or North Korea. The University of Sidney has rated the
countries of the world in terms of the threats they pose to world peace.
According to its scholars, Russia now poses a greater threat than either Iran
or North Korea (politsovet.ru/55473-rossiyu-priznali-opasnee-dlya-mira-chem-iran-i-kndr.html).
22. Only One Person
in Russia Gets All the Medical Care He Needs, Russians Say.
Some Russians, themselves unable to get healthcare because of the Kremlin’s
“health optimization” plan which has led to massive closures of hospitals, say
there is only one person in Russia who can be sure of getting all the medical
care he needs: Vladimir Putin (https://www.svoboda.org/a/28516668.html).
23. Russians Born
After USSR Now Among Its Chief Defenders. As the older generation passes from the
scene, some of the main defenders of the Soviet system are people who were born
too recently to have had direct experience with communist rule. They are thus
more easily convinced by propaganda painting the Soviet past in rosy colors (cont.ws/@2natal95/627373).
24. Senior Russian
Anti-Narcotics Official Arrested for Selling Drugs. The deputy head of the interior ministry’s
section responsible for combatting the spread of illegal drugs has been
arrested for selling them (47news.ru/articles/121213/).
25.
1917 Revolution Also to Blame for Rise of Fascism. As
Russians reflect on the revolutions of 1917 in this centenary year, some are
pointing out that among the most serious consequences of those events were the
revolutions both pro and con that the Russian events sparked elsewhere. Had
there not been a Bolshevik revolution, they say, it is unlikely that the world
would have seen the rise of fascism and Nazism (ng.ru/stsenarii/2017-05-30/10_6998_troevlastie.html).
26. SOVA Center
Appeals for Help to Pay Court Fine. The SOVA
Center which provides among the most comprehensive reporting on violations of
religious liberty and human rights in the Russian Federation has launched an
appeal to collect money so that it can pay an outrageous fine a Russian court
has levied on it for its inclusion in the list of “foreign agents” (http://www.ej.ru/?a=note&id=31161).
And 12 more from other countries in
Russia’s neighborhood:
1. One Place Where the CIS Matters. Non-Russian
countries in the CIS are rarely able to prepare Russian translations of books
published beyond the borders of the former USSR because Moscow companies
routinely demand and Western publishers agree to the principle that only
publishers in Russia can make such translations for sale in the CIS (dsnews.ua/society/spasibo-russkim-kak-imperskie-zamashki-ukrainiziruyut-nash-31052017220000).
2. Moscow Expels
Moldovan and Estonian Diplomats in Tit-for-Tat Fashion.
The Russian government expelled five Moldovan and two Estonian diplomats after
Chisinau and Tallinn did the same for the same number in their countries, a
positive development to the extent that this follows international practice and
Russia did not adopt an asymmetrical response (lenta.ru/news/2017/05/29/mid_otvet/).
3.
Are
Belarusians to Be the Irish of the Future?
Émigré Lithuanian poet Tomas Venclova says that Belarusians may be the next
nation to follow the Irish pattern of becoming more nationalistic after losing
its national language (charter97.org/ru/news/2017/5/27/251215/).
4. Belarusian Authorities Block Nobelist from Meeting
with Those in Her Native Region.
Regional officials in Belarus took the ugly step of blocking Nobel Prize
winner Svetlana Aleksiyevich from meeting with people in her home area on her
birthday (charter97.org/ru/news/2017/5/31/251731/).
5. Lukashenka Said Losing Control over Belarusian
Regions.
No one doubts that Alyaksandr Lukashenka is in control of the Belarusian
central government, but there are growing indications, opposition figures say,
that he is gradually losing control over the regions outside of the capital (nmnby.eu/news/analytics/6341.html).
6.
Belarus
Plunges to the Bottom Ten of Countries on Press Freedom List. Belarus is now firmly ensconced in the bottom
ten of countries around the world in terms of media freedom (charter97.org/ru/news/2017/5/29/251403/).
7.
Belarusian Muslims
Back Country’s Semi-Legal Christian Democrats. Belarus’ small
Muslim community, including both the indigenous Litevtsy and migrants from
Central Asia and the Caucasus, contributes members to that country’s semi-legal
Christian Democratic Party (belaruspartisan.org/politic/381639/).
8.
Estona’s Jewish
Community Center Marks 10th Anniversary. Tallinn’s Jewish
community center, the first to exist since 1940, marks its tenth anniversary,
the Jerusalem Post reports (jpost.com/Diaspora/Estonia-celebrates-10-years-of-first-Jewish-Community-Center-since-WWII-494058).
9. Yandex, Mail.Ru Shutter Operations in Ukraine. After Kyiv pointed out that the Russian-owned
and controlled Yandex search engine was giving Moscow’s intelligence services
personnel data on Ukrainians and Ukraine banned the use numerous Russian sites,
both Yandex and Mail.ru said they were ending operations in Ukraine (unian.info/society/1948451-yandexukraine-transferred-ukrainians-personal-data-to-russian-intel-sbu-says.html,
dsnews.ua/future/-yandeks-dopuskaet-svoy-uhod-iz-ukrainy-iz-za-sanktsiy-01062017142100 and qha.com.ua/ru/obschestvo/mail-ru-zakrivaet-ofis-v-ukraine/174621/).
10. Ethnic Russians
in Kazakhstan Will Flee Rather than Fight Alphabet Reform. Astana’s plans to shift from the Cyrillic to
the Latin script will exacerbate what some Moscow commentators describe as the
flight of educated Russians from that Central Asian republic (stoletie.ru/rossiya_i_mir/russkije_pokidajut_kazahstan_428.htm).
11. Kazakhstan Now
Outranks Russia in World Competitiveness Scale. Kazakhstan has now passed Russia in terms of
business competition and the ease of doing business among countries of the
world (polit.ru/news/2017/06/01/competitiveness/).
12. Kazakhstan
Dedicates Statue to Its Holodomor. Kazakhstan officials have dedicated a
monument to the victims of the terror famine Stalin inflicted on the Kazakh
population in 1931-33, an action that killed more than a third of all Kazakhs
at that time (currenttime.tv/a/28520949.html).
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