“Fear has also been used to carry out a redistribution of wealth—which is to say back under the control of the state, where Putin is chief among a collection of officials whose roles more closely resemble those of Mafia dons… — Gregory Feifer Copy Share Image
“Vladimir Putin shot out of obscurity in 1999 by exploiting growing nostalgia for the USSR, fueled by the disappointment, uncertainty and crisis that brought Yeltsin’s reform era to a shuddering halt. Once in power the following year, Putin set about building an authoritarian regime whose control would expand for more than a decade, until soaring corruption on top of another… — Gregory Feifer Copy Share
“After Georgia’s humiliation in 2008, Yanukovych repudiated the Orange Revolution by winning the next Ukrainian presidential election in 2010, setting Moscow further at ease… — Gregory Feifer Copy Share Image
“Marxism-Leninism offered little guidance to rural Afghan society, with its ancient concepts and ways.” — Gregory Feifer Copy Share
“The epidemic of HIV and AIDS, the largest in Eastern Europe and Eurasia, is even more worrisome. Registered cases in 2012 numbered more than seven hundred thousand, up from fewer than half a million as recently as 2008, but no such figure can be trusted in a country that blamed the Pentagon for AIDS during the Cold War. Experts say… — Gregory Feifer Copy Share
“All that is very relevant to Afghanistan. To a startling degree, the Politburo’s 1979 deliberations about how to deal with it mirror the Bush administration’s close-minded and secretive decision-making that led to its invasion. The Bush White House might have modeled itself on the Soviet gerontocracy under Brezhnev that brushed aside warnings from military and regional experts who knew the… — Gregory Feifer Copy Share
“(The operation didn’t take place entirely smoothly. Soviet soldiers disguised as technicians placed the explosives successfully, but were forced to return because they’d forgotten… — Gregory Feifer Copy Share Image
“Russia has denied any involvement in either of the attacks. However, Irakli Porchkhidze, President Saakashvili’s deputy national security adviser at the time, told me… — Gregory Feifer Copy Share Image
“According to at least one general staff officer, no one ever actually ordered the invasion of Afghanistan. Instead, between December 10 and 30, various… — Gregory Feifer Copy Share Image
“Even worse, however, was that the soldiers hardly knew whom they were fighting, and not only because distinguishing resistance fighters from the native civilians… — Gregory Feifer Copy Share Image
“Fear has also been used to carry out a redistribution of wealth—which is to say back under the control of the state, where Putin… — Gregory Feifer Copy Share Image
“Seeking to boost the number of young believers, the Church has successfully lobbied to make classes about Russian Orthodoxy mandatory in state schools.” — Gregory Feifer Copy Share Image
“Like most regimes not based on genuine popular support in an era of open access to information, Putin’s is inherently unstable and requires vigilant… — Gregory Feifer Copy Share Image
