by Patricia H. Kushlis | Jan 6, 2016 | Monitor
By Patricia H Kushlis After the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, the Russian Federation was left with much of its territory but far fewer of its ethnic minorities. Within Russia, most minority regions became republics along the lines of those lost. At the time,...
by Patricia H. Kushlis | Dec 10, 2015 | Monitor
By Patricia H Kushlis Last week, Montenegro, that tiny mountainous country, population of about 662,000 on the Adriatic Coast between Bosnia and Albania, was invited to join NATO. The invitation had been nine years in the making. (Montenegro map 2015 from...
by Patricia H. Kushlis | Nov 30, 2015 | Monitor
By Patricia H Kushlis The Turkish military’s downing of a Russian SU-24 was no accident but neither was the Kremlin’s overflight of Turkish territory nor its attacks on Turkmen living in regions of Syria close to the Turkish border. Russian violations of Turkish...
by Patricia H. Kushlis | Nov 9, 2015 | Monitor
By Patricia H Kushlis Didn’t Vladimir Putin turn 63 on October 7? And didn’t the Russian military provide him with a spectacular birthday present – the launch of 26 cruise missiles from the country’s flotilla in the landlocked Caspian Sea that very same day? It was...
by Patricia H. Kushlis | Sep 21, 2015 | Monitor
By Patricia H Kushlis New York Times columnist David Brooks must have read James Billington’s Icon and the Ax: An Interpretive History of Russian Culture during summer vacation. The book was a classic in its field and remained so for years after it was first...