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Showing posts from November 7, 2015

Today's Headlines - 3:19 PM 11/7/2015: Vladimir Putin's showmanship in Syria has left him without a strategy - Telegraph

Vladimir Putin's showmanship in Syria has left him without a strategy - Telegraph Metrojet crash cause still unclear but could benefit Putin - Yahoo News U.S. general sees air strikes against Islamic State picking up | Reuters Russia suspends Egypt flights, U.S. boosts security as intelligence points to bomb | Reuters Prospect that bomb destroyed plane raises specter of expanding ISIS threat - The Washington Post Russian and Egyptian officials are not to be trusted over airline crash - The Washington Post Watchdog Confident Deadly Mustard Gas Used in Syria Spotty Intelligence Prompts U.S. Caution in Assessing Jet Crash in Egypt - NYTimes.com A Plane Crash Won’t Weaken Putin’s Resolve in Syria - NYTimes.com Putin, Reimagined - NYTimes.com Johnson: 'We Need to Push Back On Propaganda Russia is Spewing in E. Europe' Путин утвердил Концепцию господдержки и продвижения русского языка White House Is Irked Again by Comments About Police - NYTimes.com The Real Meaning

Vladimir Putin's showmanship in Syria has left him without a strategy: Yet short-term success and long-term failure are the hallmark of Mr Putin’s rule. He scores stunning coups – against the oligarchs, against the opposition, against neighbours such as Georgia and Ukraine, in energy deals with China and Germany – yet at the end Russia languishes. Its economy remains unmodernised and dangerously dependent on natural resources, its institutions are weak, public services dire, the population shrinking, infrastructure crumbling, the economy shrinking, corruption rampant: no wonder Russians (notably the families of the people who run the country) are so keen to live abroad.

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Russian news, all the latest and breaking Russia news Vladimir Putin's showmanship in Syria has left him without a strategy Today, November 7th 11:33 ·   Edward Lucas · metrojet russia assad islamism sharm el-sheikh syria vladimir putin bomb Shared by  1  person But the reckoning may be a bloody one. Russia is now firmly (and probably irrevocably) positioned as an enemy of conservative and radical Sunni Muslims. It is an ardent supporter of the Sisi regime in Egypt, which jails, tortures and executes members of the Muslim Brotherhood. And it is using air-strikes and ground troops to support the Assad regime, nominally against Isil, but in fact mostly against an array of other rebel forces. This represents a radical and dangerous shift from the Kremlin’s past policy. The Soviet Union pursued a policy of intimidating non-entanglement in the Middle East. In 1985, gunmen from the Lebanese Hezbollah militia kidnapped four Sovi