The Dilettante abides
The Dilettante abides
This past July, Howard Chua-Eoan wrote on Bloomberg: In 1931, the Politburo ordered the demolition of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow; it was built by Czar Alexander I to commemorate Napoleon’s retreat from the city and the…
Discounted Russian crude oil keeps flowing to India: “It’s amazing that India is buying at these levels because the summer months – June-July – are the lowest in terms of overall demand due to the monsoon. But it seems the…
The Soviet Union subsidized the economies of some developing nations if they leaned politically towards Moscow and were considered strategically important. Supplying raw materials at discounted prices is one way to provide a subsidy to the buyer. Today, if Indian…
A quote from September 2021: Only two major pollsters, FOM and VTsIOM, are allowed to publish their findings in Russia. Naturally, both are Kremlin-friendly. Levada Center was declared a “foreign agent” in 2016 and banned from reporting its polls during…
Clara Ferreira Marques wrote yesterday in Bloomberg Elements: Russia’s plan to cut oil production by 500,000 barrels a day next month — roughly 5% of its January output and 0.5% of global supply — was a show of strength. Sorry but no. It was another…
Two recent tweets (not mine): Western pundits in thrall to American “dissident” conservatarianism all “independently” share the same opinions on Covid, ecology, Ukraine, and many other topics. Source. Also, check out Russian conspiracy theorists from 20 years ago. You may…
Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, the most senior bishop in the Christian Orthodox world, summed up the Russian church’s political stance in a recent speech: The Russian Orthodox Church sided with the regime of President Vladimir Putin, especially after the election…
Commenting on Putin’s “annexation speech” on September 30, Shaun Walker wrote in the Guardian: Today, he offered an angrier but less coherent denunciation of the west, more angry taxi driver than head of state. If you’ve ever heard a post-Soviet…
Seven and a half years ago, in 2015, Stratfor released a 10-year forecast that saw Russia falling apart by 2025. When the think tank updated its forecast five years later, it no longer mentioned Russia’s disintegration. But I’ve never stopped…
Mikhail Shishkin, in The Atlantic: The world is surprised at the quiescence of the Russian people, the lack of opposition to the war. But this has been their survival strategy for generations—as the last line of Pushkin’s Boris Godunov puts…
In the New Statesman, Katie Stallard reviews Putin: His Life and Times by Philip Short. Referring to Putin’s tenure as deputy mayor of St. Petersburg under Anatoly Sobchak, the reviewer notes: As Sobchak’s deputy, Putin earned a reputation for discipline,…
Last weekend, Bloomberg published Max Hastings‘s long-term view of the Russo-Ukrainian war: Yet it seems hard to consider Russian President Vladimir Putin as anything other than a force for evil. He is personally responsible for tens of thousands of deaths…