Category Archives: Uncategorized

Shrinking spaces

From keeping up appearances to maintaining social stability and meeting the needs of the army, regional officials are finding themselves in tight spots more and more often. A handful of developments from the recent past highlight the means and pitfalls … Continue reading

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Look closely: the districts to watch in Russia’s elections

This week from Friday to Sunday, as Russians head to the polls, United Russia’s supermajority (and the amount of falsification necessary to maintain it) will ultimately depend on how the party fares in single-mandate districts. These are the ones worth … Continue reading

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Looking farther in the near-abroad

One of the most amazing stories coming out of Russia this year was, in fact, coming out of somewhere else: Armenia. In April, Serzh Sargsyan, president in 2008-18, attempted to continue ruling the country from the newly empowered position of … Continue reading

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Putin’s endgame? Part 1: the problem of power

In the first part of No Yardstick’s series on the issues shaping Vladimir Putin’s fourth presidential term, we will first look at the core psychological question of the term: the projection of power in a period most think will be … Continue reading

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The bonfire of rationality

Yesterday I was going to post a long and detailed entry about Vladimir Putin’s priority list. About the way priorities were exposed during times of crisis and scarcity. I was going to draw a comparison with my college days in … Continue reading

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A tragedy with consequences

This is the end of the conflict in Ukraine as we know it. 

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The Putin Defence

Obviously, the biggest question when it comes to the new power structure in Russia will be about the handling of inevitable personal clashes. As I’ve blogged before, Vladimir Putin will have to solve a double task: he will have to … Continue reading

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