Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

“In the mainstream media Russia is a blank screen on which the West gazes transfixed at its own visions.” How the country ended up with Vladimir  Putin

This is a long radio interview, but it is worth listening to. (You should slide forward to minute 4:00) There is a good argument about why most Russians have been generally passive since the 1991 despite the disaster of the 1990s, and how consent has been gained.  However, it is not clear/elaborated why Russian capitalism remained weak and could not develop a strong competitive capitalist economy or why the Russian capitalist class did not embank on such a project.  Russia Beyond Putin by Tony Wood

A guide to the Jewish billionaires in Trump-Russia probe

After the Skripal attack

Russia "Russia’s economic decline continued, but this could now be presented as the price of foreign glory. Through September 2015, the main subject could be Ukraine. That October, it changed to Syria. The new Russian wars are a Bonapartism without a Napoleon, temporarily resolving domestic tensions in doomed foreign adventures , but lacking a vision for the world. Ideals are recognized in order to be mocked. In the parts of southeastern Ukraine under Russian and separatist control, millions of people have lost their homes and thousands their lives, but the property of the oligarchs is untouched—and those separatists who believed they were fighting against oligarchy have been murdered."

"Unfortunately, the revolution in the West did not materialise.  While the planned economy succeeded in transforming the lives of millions, Russia was isolated, surrounded and very quickly the regime itself degenerated into a totalitarian dictatorship and finally into a corrupt capitalist autocracy far from the aims of the revolution of 1917." The Russian Revolution — some economic notes and The Russian Revolution of October 1917 Should we regret the Russian Revolution?

Alexey Navalny: Russia's Trump