Defence
Kremlin
Uncategorized
Russia already reaping benefits of Syria conflict with military sales
Russian president Vladimir Putin has said that the war in Syria cost Russia 33 billion Rubles (or €430 million) but it may also generate billions of euros in arms sales for Russia. […]
Opinion
Spinning Russia’s Syria exit
Russian television has thrived for months on a diet of victories in Syria. Now that the time has come to spin the news of a withdrawal, the argument is being deployed that it is best to avoid a second Afghanistan. Better still, the exit is being presented as another case of Russia outsmarting the United States. […]
CORPORATE
CORPORATE
Opinion: Kaliningrad – Kremlin‘s joker in geopolitical poker game with West
The Kremlin‘s propaganda rarely shocks anymore and hardly registers as news with most people but some of it deserves attention because when a specific propaganda message is repeated over and over, it is done in an attempt to embed it in our minds as being the uncontestable truth. In the case of Kaliningrad, it has to be feared that the Kremlin‘s efforts are an attempt to incite war between the West and Russia. […]
Opinion
Opinion: The only way to defeat Putin
A cloth voodoo doll with tiny button eyes depicting Vladimir Putin; a knife to cut it; a water bowl to drown it; pins and needles to prick it. And it all feels so good. It’s a perfect illustration of what the desks of certain politicians, reporters and analysts might look like who were writing about Russia in 2014 and 2015. […]
Opinion
Opinion: Russia strengthens military forces to send message to Baltic States
Russia reported a significant strengthening of military forces in the west of the country which it said was to counter the threat of NATO from the Baltic States. […]
Opinion
Opinion: Why Russia needs Lithuania
Lithuania is a small country in comparison to Russia. So why does the Kremlin pay Lithuania a disproportionate amount of its attention? One reason is that it needs weak enemies that it can divert its people’s attention to. There was a time when Russian polls indicated that they saw Lithuania as their number one enemy. Later it was Georgia and Ukraine. […]
Society
Russian propaganda creates ‘parallel reality’ for Lithuania’s ethnic minorities
The State Security Department (VSD) of Lithuania, which is in charge of monitoring and dealing with national security threats, presented a report this week, outlining methods used by Russia to fund pro-Kremlin and anti-Western propaganda in Lithuania. […]
Opinion
Opinion: Winning back hearts and souls of Lithuania’s citizens
The West now faces bigger problems than Ukraine’s future or Russia’s plans for its neighbours. The growing threat of terrorism makes Russia more and more indispensable to its Western partners. That’s dangerous for the Baltic states because there’s no way that the Kremlin will renounce its aggressive goals, get lost in Syria or run out of resources for all of its front lines. […]
Uncategorized
Putin’s Russia. What is Kremlin actually capable of?
In the latest article of this series (“Putin’s Russia. Kremlin’s Goal No. 1”) I analysed the theory and practice of Russian foreign policy trying to ground the thesis that Kremlin’s main goal is to undermine the EU and NATO, and bring the world back to the times of international power balance. […]
Uncategorized
Uncategorized
Russian opposition figure hospitalized with mysterious illness
Russian opposition activist and journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza was rushed to hospital in Moscow on Wednesday after suddenly losing consciousness. Doctors initially suspected poisoning. […]
Uncategorized
Putin’s Russia. Roots of today’s regime date back to KGB under Andropov
In the articles of Putin’s Russia series I have repeatedly written about Yevgeny Primakov’s clan. I have described in detail the ongoing battle regarding the implementation of the so-called peace plan in Ukraine, and Primakov’s influence structures both in Russia and in the West. The article about Yevtushenkov’s case was also inevitably related to the information about Primakov’s clan because the oligarch was considered the member of this clan. […]
Uncategorized
Bruce S. Thornton: Why should Putin risk for Baltic states?
The Western countries are unable to properly respond to Russia‘s aggressive policies, because they are “rich enough to afford the luxury of believing that [they] can take a vacation from history, and ignore the permanent reality of human violence and conflicting, zero-sum interests,” according to Hoover Institution research fellow Prof. Bruce S. Thornton. […]
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Lithuania calls for EU sanctions against Kremlin officials
As the European Union prepares for imposing sanctions against pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Linas Linkevičius is also calling for blacklisting officials of the Kremlin. […]
Uncategorized
Russian Soldiers – cheap and luckless (I)
Ten years ago on 3 September 2004 at exactly 13:00 in Beslan, North Ossetia, Chechen terrorists allowed the bodies of local people who had been killed and left lying there for three days in front of a school, to be gathered up. On 1 September the 34 Chechen terrorists had taken about 1200 teenagers and children hostage in the school. […]
Opinion
Opinion: Where Putin will be stopped?
How far will the aggressive regime of Vladimir Putin go? I put this question in June to my former colleague who is ambassador of one of the foreign countries. The answer was simple and precise – Putin will go as far as the Western States will allow it. […]
Uncategorized
Would Russia be a different country without Putin?
If Russian President Vladimir Putin were replaced by another politician in the Kremlin, Russia‘s foreign policy would not change, most Lithuanians think. […]