Tag - soviet-union

 
 

SOVIET UNION

Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine, much like those of past Soviet leaders, stem from a desire to be recognized as a global power and from perceived Western threats.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 7, 2024
The sources of Russian conduct
From Josef Stalin to Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet leaders shared Putin’s desire for “great power” prestige.
Ukrainian military Leopard 2A4 tanks during a training exercise in Spain.
WORLD
Jul 20, 2024
How a Berlin Cold War outpost offers a window on challenges today
With the West again aligned against Moscow as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine grinds on, it now seems strangely current.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, view international order as hinging on the concept of indivisible security.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 12, 2024
Russia and China want security for themselves and no one else
Putin and Xi seek indivisible security, that is, exercising draconian control over their respective spheres of influence — which shows the extent of their hypocrisy.
U.S. President Joe Biden in the Oval Office in Washington. The idea that the U.S.-China hotline can bridge communication gaps during crises rings hollow.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 2, 2024
If a phone rings in a forest and no one answers, is it a hotline?
Hotlines allow states to talk in crisis situations. But China often doesn't pick up when the U.S. calls, raising doubts about the utility of the communications link.
Royalty took the top image spots on the June 3, 1924, edition of The Japan Times. In addition to Japan's imperial celebrations, the paper nodded to the birthday of Britain's King George V.
JAPAN / History / Japan Times Gone By
Jun 1, 2024
Japan Times 1924: Tokyo gaily makes merry
After having suffered from a devastating earthquake the previous year, a royal wedding brings back a celebratory mood to the capital.
Allowing Ukraine into NATO would not only bolster Kyiv's defenses against Russia’s invasion, but also strengthen the alliance’s military capabilities and deter future aggression.
COMMENTARY / World
May 27, 2024
The case for Ukraine’s NATO accession
By admitting Ukraine, NATO could tip the balance decisively in Kyiv's favor and dispel any doubt about the alliance’s future, ensuring a lasting peace.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping meet in Beijing on May 16.
COMMENTARY / World
May 26, 2024
The fragile fraternity of China and Russia
Putin’s Mao-like bid for a full-fledged military alliance with China, including commitments to mutual defense, also seems to have failed.
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin (left) and then-Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in the Kremlin on May 7. While President Vladimir Putin has no real challengers, powerful actors within his government are vying against each other.
COMMENTARY / World
May 16, 2024
The battle of ministries in Putin’s Russia
Historical parallels suggest that Putin’s top-down approach, like Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization and Gorbachev’s perestroika, risks sparking opposition by causing intra-elite infighting.
Construction near Mailuu-Suu in the Jalal-Abad region, Kyrgyzstan. Dams in Kyrgyzstan holding uranium mine tailings have become unreliable after a 2017 landslide.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy
Apr 24, 2024
Unstable nuclear-waste dams threaten fertile Central Asia heartland
One more earthquake or landslide, and dams in Kyrgyzstan holding back radioactive waste water could burst, rendering the area uninhabitable.
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and other Baltic politicians placed on Russia's wanted list risk arrest if they cross the Russian border, but otherwise declaring them as "wanted" is unlikely to have any practical consequence.
WORLD / Politics
Feb 14, 2024
Moscow puts Estonia PM on wanted list for destroying Soviet-era monuments
After Russia invaded Ukraine, Baltic governments demolished the monuments they considered their former imperial overlords' propaganda tools.
Ukrainian police and military experts collect fragments of a downed Russian drone near residential buildings in Kyiv on Saturday.
WORLD
Nov 25, 2023
Russia launches huge drone attack as Kyiv marks historic famine
Ukraine’s air defense said it shot down 71 of 75 drones aimed mainly toward the capital region.
Under President Vladimir Putin rule, reason, logic, and humanity appear to have been systematically eroded from Russian life, similar to the era of Stalin and his gulags. 
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 2, 2023
Russian life imitates dystopian art
The state in Russia has always tended toward absolutism and its coercive and penal arms have rarely wielded as much power as they do now.
A woman cleans a portrait displayed on a tree to mark the Day of Victims of Political Repressions, who were buried during the Stalin era in the woods on the outskirts of St. Petersburg on Monday.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 31, 2023
Russians struggle to keep alive memory of Stalin's victims
Russian President Vladimir Putin has sought to suppress attempts to evaluate Josef Stalin critically.
A new Russian textbook for high school students on general world and national history
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 27, 2023
Putin’s history lessons fail to heed the lessons of history
Putin seems to have forgotten is that rewriting history to serve the interests of those in power tends to invite dissent and often backfires.
Russian businessman and co-founder of Alfa Group Mikhail Fridman (left) attends a conference in Moscow in September 2019.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 24, 2023
Sympathy for the oligarch
As private actors sought to navigate the collapse of the Soviet economy, they ended up shaping it into something far more functional and prosperous.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Jun 16, 2023
China’s spying in Cuba picks up where the Soviet Union left off
Beijing’s reported efforts at surveillance from Cuba are reminiscent of Lourdes, a Soviet-built listening post just south of Havana.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 6, 2023
Robert Hanssen, FBI agent exposed as spy for Moscow, dies at 79
Hanssen was sentenced to life in prison in 2002, bringing to a close one of the most lurid and damaging espionage cases in American history.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan / Geoeconomic Briefing
May 30, 2023
What Japan can learn from a leader's diplomacy four decades ago
At a G7 summit, Yasuhiro Nakasone took the lead and helped to heal a growing rift between France and the United States.

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?