Merkel Salvages Nord Stream, But Is Putin Losing Russia's Gas Monopoly?

The European Union took a first step with its February 8 vote towards turning Russia’s gas monopoly, Gazprom, from an instrument of Russian power politics into a regulated utility, deprived of its monopoly power. In an odd twist, Germany, the self-proclaimed guardian of European unity, found itself politically isolated from the rest of Europe, which sided with U.S. President Donald Trump. A bitter pill for Germany to swallow.



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Progressives pulling a bait-and-switch with 'Medicare for All'

"Medicare for All," if properly explained, should markedly increase the chances of Donald Trump’s re-election. The media has already figured out that "Medicare for All" outlaws the employer health insurance of 170 million Americans and that medical resources may cover 44 million currently on Medicare but would be insufficient for 325 million. 

Tough decisions lay ahead for the Democrat presidential candidates.

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My Quest for an Oscar: Women of the Gulag

One thing is certain: There will be no second Women of the Gulag. We captured these heroines near the ends of their lives—in their eighties and nineties. As the voting began, we learned the sad news that Fyokla, a peasant girl who grew up in a Gulag settlement in the Urals to become a local human rights activist, had passed on. She has joined Ksenia and Vera as “last witnesses” lost forever. Adile, now 98 years old, put it best: “I have lived so long so as to be able to tell the truth.”

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Oscar Contender Women of the Gulag Meets its First Troll – A Gulag Denier

Our documentary film, Women of the Gulag, made the Academy’s short-list of ten documentary films contending for a place in the final five. That Russian-American director, Marianna Yarovskaya, is the first Russian documentary film maker in the history of the Russian Federation to make it so far in Oscar competition has attracted considerable attention in Russian media, especially its liberal sites. It did not take long however before it caught the attention of Russian Gulag deniers. A writer for  https://zol-dol.livejournal.com/994442.html viewed the film and concluded that the five female Gulag survivors, telling their story on camera were lying. Such things that they describe – the arbitrary sentences, the beatings, and arrest of innocent fathers and husbands – were made-up fantastic stories. Who could believe that a young woman sleeping in a tent at a freezing logging camp could wake up with a frog in her mouth? Surely viewers will not be taken in by such nonsense. Besides, director Yarovskaya is incompetent – a dupe of faux human-rights organizations, like Memorial. In the same edition, another Gulag-denier writes that the much-authenticated order 00447 that initiated the Great Terror is a fabrication of Russian human-rights organizations. So far, Russian mainstream media is waiting and watching, asking should Yarovskaya’s Women of the Gulag be treated as an accomplishment of Russian film makers or an attempt to sully the greatness of Russian history?

Putin's latest Ukraine stunt may blow up in his face

With such rogue behavior, it is increasingly difficult for Germany’s Putin Versteher to argue that NS2 is simply a normal commercial deal. It should be increasingly clear that Gazprom is not a commercial business but an arm of Russian geopolitical policy.

Another twist: Russia purportedly supported the anti-immigrant AfD party, whose electoral successes crashed Germany’s stable political equilibrium and caused electoral disasters for the SPD, its most reliable ally in the NS2 saga. Was this another mistake by master strategist Putin? 

Yet another twist for Washington to consider: With increasing doubts about NS2, U.S. sanctions of the five European energy giants that are partnering with Russia on NS2 could frighten them into abandoning ship.

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Russia’s Re-Stalinization: Father of Nation or Mass Murerer?

Here’s how the Kremlin argument goes:  Stalin was a complex figure. Granted, he killed and imprisoned many innocent people, but in the process he eliminated a potent Fifth Column. Stalin had to use political terror to protect the world’s first socialist state from foreign agents, class enemies, and supporters of the old regime. He had no choice but to apply terror indiscriminately. Yes, Stalin’s forced industrialization imposed hardship – famine, work quotas, and extreme labor discipline – but his harsh measures toughened the Russian people for a war that was sure to come. The USSR could not have beaten Hitler without the Gulag camps that mined the resources of the godforsaken East and produced the tanks and airplanes that won the war. The death squads of political prisoners sent out into German minefields saved the lives of loyal Russian soldiers. Yes, Stalin did bad things, but he did them for the good of his nation – so goes the argument.



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