Convinced that the new authorities in Kiev will finally pull Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit, Vladimir Putin is hacking off as much of the country as he can get away with.
Putin
Why Putin Took Crimea
Russia’s seizure of Crimea wasn’t an act of an expanding empire but of an archaic regime throwing up a last line of defense against Westernization.
Obama’s Response to Invasion of Crimea Is ‘Pathetic’
“The Sixth Fleet should be here,” said Ali Hamzin. “Today only the U.S. can preserve the territorial integrity and independence of Ukraine.”
Relief and Fear in a Divided Crimea
“I thought I was working for freedom and human rights,” said Serhiy Kovalsky. “But now I have the feeling that in reality I was working for Putin.”
Putin’s Moscow is Anxious, Gilded and Hollow
Moscow is always a surprising kind of place. I expected Putin’s us-against-them nationalism to be more strident than ever. But I find the city uncharacteristically subdued and anxious about the future.
The Olympic Land Grab
Officials in Sochi introduce a new Olympic discipline.
Skating in a Swamp
The Olympic Park has sprouted up on a drained wetland that until a few years ago was a state farm.
At Putin’s Dacha
Putin’s love of Sochi is the sole reason that Russia’s only subtropical city will host the Winter Olympics.
Russian Riviera
Sochi was just a provincial backwater when I first visited.
Khodorkovsky and Me
It was a very strange feeling to find out that Mikhail Khodorkovsky had landed in Berlin. I’d moved to the German capital in part to kick the adrenaline addiction of reporting from Russia. I was tired of the news always coming to me.
