Epstein Secrets

ll sample of similar claims or conjec- tures that have made their way into Russian news cov- erage, especially in the wake of Moscow's occupation of Crimea and invasion of eastem Ukraine. They stand as a reminder that under Vladimir Putin, the Russian media environment has been transformed from one ma

MOCRACY: Goals, Strategies, and Methods of Modern Authoritarians In May 2014, Putin signed a new law that criminalized the purposeful distortion of the Soviet Union's role in World War II. It could easily be applied to historians who, for example, criticize Stalin's Great Terror and its decimation of the militar

anteed Ukraine's territorial integrity in return for the state giving up its nuclear weapons, the US did not act forcefully to stop Russia annexing Crimea. In each case, there have been different motivations and political considerations. But taken together, these events, and others, have contributed t

the rebel-controlled eastern Ukrainian city of Slovyansk. The week ahead will see two decisive days of reckoning: May 9, when Russians commemorate the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany, and May 11, when pro-Russian separatists occupying government buildings in a dozen cities in eastern Ukraine will hold a

ho dares disagree. Their demands range from a referendum on the independent status for the region to an outright annexation by Russia, based on the Crimea model. The rabble-rousers' identities are apparently mixed - for example, many of them are local veteransof the Soviet war in Afghanistan while oth

ith Soviet subsidies, and stem any risk of contagion within the Soviet bloc, which proved an immense economic burden that eventually contributed to the Soviet Union's final economic crisis. In Putin's case, as in Khrushchev's, short-term gains could boomerang into long-term disasters. CYNTHIA A. ROBERTS teaches