Russia - Katoikos

BRICS: Navigating a Complex Economic and Political Landscape

Johnatan Santos
Russia , World , India , Peace & Security , Analysis , Foreign Affairs
28 August, 2024

Initially formed as “BRIC” – Brazil, Russia, India, China – and subsequently becoming “BRICS”, with the addition of South Africa,[1] this group of countries constitutes a unique coalition of emerging economies that collectively represent a significant counterbalance to the established economic powers of the West. Despite their collective identity, BRICS members are markedly different in…

Wagner Group’s attempted coup shakes Putin’s regime and sparks global concern

Unprecedented challenge reveals a weakness in Russia’s centralized power structure The recent coup attempt in Russia, led by the Wagner Group, has shaken the country’s political landscape and led analysts to question the stability of President Vladimir Putin’s regime. The armed rebels’ incursion into Russian territory and their march on Moscow directly challenged Putin’s authority…

Geopolitics and ‘Rough Wooing’

The attack on Ukraine has had tragic consequences for all Ukrainians and many Russians. The horror of families being killed and divided is a spectacle that nearly all Europeans believed had been banished forever from our Continent. Even most of the attacking troops and the Ukrainian population refused to believe it might happen. But the…

Russia is less than its myths and the truth will set its peoples free

Lately, I came across a very interesting article “The Roots of Russia”, written exactly sixty years ago by Dr. Lev Dobriansky (1918-2008), a renowned Professor of Economics at Georgetown University and former US Ambassador to The Bahamas[1]. Dobriansky’s article was re-published in January 1964, in An Cosantóir (The Defender), The Irish Defence Journal, courtesy of…

Russia’s War on Ukrainian Heritage, Yet Another War Crime

The nineteenth-century German poet Heinrich Heine’s words inspired Raphael Lemkin, the drafter of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide: “Burning books is not the same as burning bodies…but when one intervenes … against mass destruction of churches and books one arrives just in time to prevent the burning…

Nine months is enough

This essay is written to distance proper understanding of the Russian war against Ukraine from any false equivalence that this is a conflict between two belligerents, whose perspectives deserve equal recognition as a prelude to a negotiated outcome. Attempts to explore alternative avenues to peace, and identify differentiated messages and appropriate envoys and institutions should…

A Rebranded Russia After Sanctions

Western forecasters predicted that Russia’s economy would collapse after unprecedented sanctions were imposed on Moscow as a result of the conflict in Ukraine. However, the Russian statistics office (ROSSTAT), recently reported that the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the first half of the year fell by only 0.4%. According to official data, capital expenditures…

A new era of uncertainty: A brief analysis of the sanctions imposed on Russia

The year of 2020 has ushered the start of a new era, one that many expected to be one of achievement, economic growth, and development on a global scale. However, today we can in fact say that this new era that began is being marked by political and economic crises and uncertainties. Since the COVID-19…

Prospects for Democratic Change in Putin’s Russia: What is the Role of the Youth?

A long winter is in full swing in Russia. It pursues those daring to face its freezing breath, keeps people indoors where one cannot spread toxic ideas that winter is harsh, attacks people on the streets with endless snowfalls, and bends their will to resist. This winter has been ruling over Russia for already 20…

Europe in the crossfire of words and aggressive gestures

Russia’s geopolitical intentions set it on a collision course with NATO. Has Europe been doing a good job of defending itself?