
Call it a new cold war or a “hot peace,” US-Russia relations are terrible, yet within recent memory the two countries still cooperated on a range of issues. To answer which side is to blame for current tensions, Stephen Cohen debated Michael McFaul at Columbia University.
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“Collective euphoria” may explain the surge in support for Putin that followed Russia’s annexation of Crimea, said Graeme Robertson.
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One year after the US presidential elections, what is the current state of US-Russian/Eurasian relations and what can we expect for the future?
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The 2017 Jordan Center Annual Distinguished Lecture featured the work of Harvard University Professor, Timothy Colton, on “Russia and the Ukraine Crisis”.
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Researchers from the Danish Institute for International Studies explore Russian identity under Putin, and the role of politics of memory in European-Russian relations.
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The four panelists argued that the elections reflect a country undergoing significant changes behind the scenes.
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On May 4, 2016, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia and the NYU Russian Club held a panel discussion entitled “Beyond Political Games,” dedicated to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict from the historic and cultural point of view. Panelists included Yanni Kotsonis, Director of the Jordan Center, Lucan Way, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto, and Peter Zalmayev, Director of the Eurasia Democracy Initiative. The panel was introduced by Rossen Djagalov, Assistant Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at NYU. “In my experience, [this is a topic] that doesn’t really encourage meaningful dialogue for the most part, which is precisely why it’s important,” Djagalov said.
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On September 25, 2015, the NYU Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia welcomed Professor Nancy Condee for its 2015 Distinguished Lecture. Condee, who teaches Slavic and film studies and serves as director of the Global Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh, delivered a talk titled “Property Rites: Russian Culture Today and the Politics of Seizure.”
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On the recent anniversary of the Russian annexation of Crimea, residents of the peninsula came out on the streets to celebrate waving flags, cheering and clapping. There was music and dancing. The Night Wolves, a biker gang known for having close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, joined all the way from Moscow.
Crimea escaped civil war, but for some it remains a battleground.
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Early in 2014 the Russian annexation of Crimea caused international uproar. Subsequently, things went quiet. Today, the media are paying attention again, as they reveal how local Russian authorities are targeting the Crimean Tatars, one of the peninsula’s main ethnic minority groups, through actions aimed at restricting their autonomy. In a display of hypocrisy and shortsightedness, Western leaders remain silent.
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As the tension between Russia and the West turns into a deeper rift in the wake of the Ukrainian crisis, many have been tempted to declare the beginning of a new Cold War. The English-language media – both Western and Russian – has taken the approach a step further. Flicking through the pages of newspapers or scrolling down a webpage, the tendency towards interpreting current events as a permanent confrontation between Russia and the West is evident: Journalists have put on their Cold War goggles and seem set on keeping them on.
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On Sept. 29 the NYU School of Professional Studies Center for Global Affairs and the Jordan Center teamed up to present the first installment of Revisiting Russia, a special series of three conversations on contemporary Russia co-sponsored by the two institutions. The first event, titled “Where Is Putin Leading Russia?,” saw leading Russian affairs expert Mark Galeotti take center stage for a discussion of the factors shaping the politics of Vladimir Putin and the future of the country. Professor Yanni Kotsonis, Director of the Jordan Center, moderated the talk, which is part of the program of celebrations marking the 10th anniversary of the Center for Global Affairs.
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Sept. 12 marked the opening of the Jordan Center’s Fall 2014 Colloquium Series with a presentation by Arturas Rozenas, Assistant Professor at the NYU Department of Politics, whose current research focuses on authoritarian states, electoral competitions and statistical methodology. Rozenas presented a paper on the nature of Soviet elections, which he had written several years ago and currently wishes to revive with newly gathered data from the KGB and Communist Party archives in Lithuania.
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If you read the speech for content, it becomes nonsensical.
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Crimea “has always really been part of Russia” only after it had already been annexed. That is, the sentiment that some parts of Ukraine are really Russia was not an issue of such gravity until after they saw a chance to make a move.
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The East-West confrontation over Ukraine, which led to Moscow’s annexation of Crimea but long predated it, is potentially the worst international crisis in more than fifty years—and the most fateful. A negotiated resolution is possible, but time may be running out.
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None of the former Soviet territories exist in a vacuum and any declaration of independence or separatism will always involve the support or condemnation of more powerful and influential actors.
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This was the first week someone had asked me to edit their guerrilla warfare recruiting propaganda.
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Angela Merkel’s observation that Putin has lost contact with reality went immediately viral, gaining broad acceptance as a diagnosis. This should come as no surprise.
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Writing in the middle of a crisis is always dangerous.
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