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Opinion

Mikhail Troitskiy

Tear Down the Wall of Silence Around Negotiations To End Russia-Ukraine War

Confidentiality often helps diplomacy. But it also protects the parties from accountability rather than the talks from disruption.
James D. J. Brown

Putin Revealed His True Intentions With Japan by Visiting Disputed Islands

The Russian president's visit to the Kuril Islands is a strategic blunder in Moscow's rarely straightforward relationship with Tokyo.
5 Min read
Kateryna Shenheliia

What Did Russia’s Opposition Do When Yabloko Was Thrown Off the Ballot? Keep Fighting Itself.

The exclusion of the anti-war Yabloko party from State Duma elections has become yet another catalyst for infighting among Russia's opposition.
7 Min read
Nick Trickett

How Russia’s Obsession With Economic Stability Made It Weaker

For decades, Western observers thought Russia's economy was going from strength to strength. But it was creating its own weaknesses.
12 Min read
Nigel Gould-Davies

Soviet Dissidents Understood What Russia’s Exiled Opposition Has Forgotten

Russia's opposition appear uncomfortable with what defeating Russia and supporting Ukraine would mean. Their Soviet predecessors were more clear-eyed.
5 Min read
Dan Storyev

Russia's State Duma Elections Are for Show. But They're Still Worth Paying Attention To.

It's tempting to dismiss the need to pay attention to the elections this September. But if they weren't important, the Kremlin wouldn't hold them.
8 Min read
Ilya Yashin

Russia’s Exiled Opposition Wants What’s Best for Europe. It’s a Better Future For Russia, Too.

If Europe wants to remain secure when Putin is gone, it needs to think about the very Russians it is building walls to keep out.
5 Min read
An Anonymous Writer in Russia

Ukraine Can’t Bomb Russians Into Opposing Putin

History shows that countries under attack are more likely to be galvanized than demoralized. That appears to be happening in Russia today.
5 Min read
Zarina Akhmatova

Tokayev’s Warning to Putin Was About More Than Ukraine

Kazakhstan tries to balance relations with Russia and other major powers. But the economic risk of the war meant the president had to speak out.
5 Min read
Andrey Sapozhnikov

Spider-Man Shows the Folly of Ukraine’s Cultural Boycott

Art is supposed to unite people. But even three seconds of music from a famously anti-war Russian singer was too much for Ukraine.
5 Min read
Konstantin Gaivoronsky

Putin Can Learn 3 Big Lessons From World War I

The war in Ukraine is often compared to the trenches and desolate landscapes of World War I. But there are political parallels, as well.
8 Min read
Alexander Gubsky

When Corporate Culture Works: In Memory of Derk Sauer

The Moscow Times' survival is primarily thanks to the professionalism and corporate culture that Derk fostered, publisher Alexander Gubsky writes.
3 Min read
Dennis T. Cosgrove

When U.S.-Russia Cooperation Worked – And Why Its Collapse Still Matters

Russian and American law enforcement regularly worked together to solve serious crimes. Without cooperation, instability will continue.
5 Min read
Tatyana Rybakova

Where Can Russia Find More Money for War?

Economists in Russia said on condition of anonymity that banks can only keep up their staring contest with the Finance Ministry for so long.
7 Min read
Yan Levchenko

Russian Propaganda Is Getting Worse as the War Drags On

Propagandists are out of ideas for how to convince Russians to fight for victory when their skies are filled with smoke from drone strikes.
5 Min read
Gleb Bogush

Washington’s War on the International Criminal Court Is a Gift to the Kremlin

I watched Moscow dismiss international courts as politicized institutions interfering with national sovereignty. America learned the wrong lesson.
6 Min read
Valery Panyushkin

Moscow Shows Little Faith in the Potential of Russian Children

From the Kremlin's perspective, every ruble spent educating a teenager who ends up unemployed — or an art historian — is a ruble not spent on the war...
4 Min read
Kateryna Shenheliia

Is Clavicular Russia's Next Useful Idiot?

Like with the women of Paris and Tel Aviv, Clavicular will find that ordinary Russian women have no time for him. But Moscow may see an opportunity.
7 Min read
Olga Borisova

I Am Wanted by Russia. The Consequences Follow Me Everywhere.

Being convicted in absentia brings the most frightening part of your life into ordinary situations that should have nothing to do with politics.
4 Min read
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