Fragments of a blog
Fragments of a blog
When in late March Vladimir Putin visited a Moscow hospital wearing a hazmat suit, he got ridiculed by Russian viewers for more than one reason. First, the full-body protective gear was obviously overkill. Unless his immune system had been damaged…
A fund manager running a private equity fund out of Luxembourg writes: Regarding what happened on the ground, one can assume that Saudi Arabia had prepared a plan A and a contingency plan before entering the talks. Plan A was…
The Guardian reports from Moscow: Moscow woke up to a mandatory lockdown on Monday, as the 12.5 million residents of the Russian capital were told to stay indoors in order to slow the spread of coronavirus. The restrictions are some…
When Eduard Limonov died, five days ago, obituaries appeared the world over. The New York Times, The Los Angeles TImes, Le Monde, La Repubblica, El País, O Público. Limonov was a uniquely talented, original poet, a gifted fiction writer, and…
There have only been 45 COVID-19 cases in Russia so far – a rather low number considering that Russia does lots of business with China and the EU. Inevitably, one suspects undertesting and/or underreporting. The true number of infected persons?…
The BBC’s Russian service reported on Monday (the translation is my own): The prosecution in the MH17 crash case has claimed that at least two Buk missile launchers were dispatched from Russia to Ukraine in 2014 but one of them…
I’ll start by quoting myself (as of January 17, 2020): … if Putin remains politically active, the new setup will let him stay in charge for as long as he wants. It could even enable him to take a less…
Saudi Arabia has responded to Russia’s refusal to cooperate by cutting prices and threatening (credibly, it seems) to raise output: The kingdom plans to pump more than 10m [million, not thousand] barrels a day next month while announcing unprecedented discounts…
It was a black Friday for the oil market: OPEC and non-OPEC allies failed on Friday to agree on how much oil production to cut amid the coronavirus outbreak, with Russia reportedly refusing to give the green light to the…
A Chinese college student living with his family in Wuhan was unwell on January 17, became seriously ill by Jan. 21 and started feeling better after a life-threatening crisis on Jan. 26. He had been treated by doctors from a…
One more thought about Putin’s hasty edits to the constitution. Let’s say under the current constitution the president may do A but not B. (Either B strictly belongs in the legislative domain, or it is out of reach of any…
This is how some Russian commenters have called Putin’s plan to change the constitution. I’m not claiming I understand the strategy behind the changes or their intended consequences. I would guess that, if Putin remains politically active, the new setup…