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Questions tagged [russian-federation]

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For questions about or involving the Russian Federation, successor of the Soviet Union. Located in Eurasia, Russia is the largest country by land mass, and it operates as a semi-presidential republic.

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12
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1answer
1k views

Are there Trump administration officials who are demonstrably more antagonistic to Russia?

The common perception is that Trump administration is less antagonistic to Russia than, say, Republican congressional leadership, or the latter-day Obama administration (we won't digress into the "...
75
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10answers
51k views

What specifically did Michael Flynn do wrong?

These are the three things which I understand about the situation: He potentially discussed sanctions with a Russian ambassador He misrepresented or lied about his conversations with the Russian ...
7
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3answers
588 views

Why is Iran buying passenger jets from USA and EU?

Source Interestingly, even after long sanctions and diplomatic melt down, they are buying 80 jets from USA (Boeing) and 50-60 jets from EU (Airbus). Why did Iran order jets from USA and EU when ...
64
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11answers
19k views

Why don't the other countries of Europe maintain as massive a military as Russia does?

The countries that are in my inquiry list are: --------+----------+-------------+-----------+--------- SN | Country | Population | GDP | DefExp --------+----------+-------------+---------...
7
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3answers
2k views

Why does Russia always put importance on world dominance rather than economic development?

For instance, China has also put importance on military muscle, but not with the price of the economy. The following graph shows that Russia's GDP is falling and China's GDP has rocketed. The ...
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2answers
199 views

Is it legal for US non-government organizations to take funding from a foreign country and fund US candidates for office?

Can a private charity 501(c)(3) or (4) be banned in the US for laundering money from a foreign country if they can't prove they have a monetary firewall between it and its other legal entities and ...
5
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4answers
934 views

Why are almost all of the United Nations headquarters located in Europe or America?

Why are almost all of the United Nations headquarters located in Europe or America? Why aren't there any headquarter of UN department in Asia or Latin America or Africa? See this Wikipedia list:
11
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4answers
1k views

What is the risk of Russia invading Baltics?

Back in the late 70s and early 80s, US Department of Defense was readily preparing for USSR invasion of Iran, which turned out to be a complete blunder in intelligence. Are we experiencing the same ...
5
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2answers
846 views

Why did Obama decide to expel Russian diplomats?

Why did Obama choose to expel 35 diplomats and operatives in retaliation for Russia's hacking during the elections? It appears reducing the number of diplomats may strain our relationship with Russia ...
5
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1answer
569 views

Who has more “diplomats”, Russia or the United States?

Given the current spat over diplomatic expulsions between Russia and the United States an interesting question is: who has more diplomats? The US expelled 35 Russian diplomats. Assuming that Russia ...
4
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1answer
419 views

What caused the Rep. party members' dramatic shift on views on Russia?

The recent data published by The Economist/YouGov (PDF, ##26, 28) taken on December 10-13 2016, clearly indicate a dramatic change on Republican party members' view on Russia and Putin: The surveys ...
5
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0answers
364 views

Did USA interfere in Putin's elections (parliamentary election in December 2011)? [closed]

Is Putin's alleged meddling in US elections 2016 revenge for US interference in prior Russian elections? According to this article, Putin thinks [Clinton] interfered in his election - the ...
39
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6answers
12k views

Why might the Russians want Trump to win? [duplicate]

The American CIA reportedly believes that the Russians, in the form of the Russian government and possibly private actors, went to signficant length (psych / cyber ops) to help Trump win. Having said ...
14
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3answers
852 views

Is the Russian legislature unusually enthusiastic about Trump's victory?

It has been widely reported that, upon the announcement of Donald Trump's victory in the American presidential election, the Russian Duma erupted into applause. These reports are sometimes alarmist ...
0
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2answers
237 views

How big is Iran's military budget?

It seems that a very high percentage of the Iran's oil revenues will be spent on buying arms: Iran and China sign military cooperation agreement Russia, Iran plan $10bn arms supply to Tehran How ...
10
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4answers
649 views

What are the upsides or advantages to the USA of intervening in Syria?

As Syria is a Russian ally/client state, U.S. intervention in Syria's civil war was bound to anger Russia and draw them into the conflict to protect their sphere of influence. It has turned into a ...
12
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4answers
4k views

Why does Russia need to win Aleppo for the Assad regime before they can withdraw?

I just read this very interesting article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/19/russia-taunts-us-with-biggest-military-offensive-since-the-cold/ And the author stated that Russia need to win ...
3
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2answers
318 views

Is the borderline between DPRK and Russia anyhow protected?

Is there anything that doesn't allow the people of DPRK to cross the North Korea-Russian border?
9
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2answers
251 views

Russia and the Security Council resolution on a Syria ceasefire

Why did Russia block the recent U.N. Security Council resolution on a ceasefire in Aleppo?
0
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3answers
1k views

Why would the Russian government use hackers and email leaks to try to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election? [closed]

Assuming the Joint Statement from the Department Of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security is correct that: only Russiaā€™s senior-most officials ...
18
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4answers
3k views

Why would the Russian Annexation of Crimea be illegal?

Hillary Clinton answered a journalist's question about Trump appearing on the Larry King Show, a Russian State TV program. She called the annexation of Crimea was illegal. But, there was a legal ...
12
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1answer
1k views

Why does Russia hold hard on keeping Chechnya?

Since the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, lot of its republics chose to be independent states and most succeeded without any significant pressure from the then newly established Russia. But one ...
8
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3answers
561 views

What domestic benefits might Putin expect from endorsing Trump?

This is a follow up from my other question. The answers in the linked question agreed that Putin's incentives for endorsing Trump were primarily domestic, such as pushing anti-U.S. government ...
6
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3answers
398 views

Can you give me a pro-Kremlin news source?

As a daily academic exercise, I read news articles on the same topic from multiple news agencies with a different political orientation. I'd like to add a pro-Kremlin news agency; with a preference ...
3
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1answer
162 views

Was there any change in perception of Militia/Police in Russia after the renaming?

A while back, Russia renamed their cops from Militsia into Politsia (Police). Are there any surveys showing whether the brand name change (as opposed to any specific meaningful changes to the ...
3
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2answers
200 views

What is the difference between the National Guard and the MVD Internal Troops?

Recently, Putin signed the law that creates the National Guard of Russia (Š Š¾ŃŠ³Š²Š°Ń€Š“Šøя), seemingly replacing the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD, ŠœŠ’Š”). What is the difference ...
6
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2answers
356 views

Why World is Silent on use of Phosphorus in Aleppo

Ok I can understand that Russia has the Veto power but still there is not even a word of condemnation on use of White Phosphorus by Russia on the innocent civilians in Aleppo. (Worthy note that White ...
3
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1answer
99 views

How is authority distributed in the Commonwealth of Independent States?

As a sort of a successor organization to the Soviet Union, which itself was a successor to the Russian Empire, it would seem that some of the member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States ...
32
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6answers
3k views

Why and since when did Russia stop integrating itself into the Western community?

After the downfall of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation was on its way to integrating itself into the Western community politically, economically and socially (by Western World I mean the so-...
0
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2answers
549 views

Who caused the Ukraine crisis, according to Putin?

In reaction to Euromaidan, Putin claimed, that the whole Ukraine crisis was planned by USA and EU. Afterwards he argued that he invaded Ukraine to stop the authoritarian regime taking rule. But ...
2
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1answer
309 views

Why are Russian planes flying so close to US military personnel? [closed]

Over the past week, I've seen a couple news stories about Russian aircraft flying unusually near US military personnel, including warships and US aircraft. What does Russia gain from this, and why are ...
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2answers
182 views

UNSC resolution does not ban Su-30 fighter jet sales to Iran: Russia

Russia says UNSC resolution does not ban Su-30 fighter jet sales to Iran, But US Department of State Undersecretary for Political Affairs, Thomas Shannon, claimed that under the resolution, such ...
3
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3answers
564 views

What is the basis for Putin describing the collapse of the Soviet Union as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century? [closed]

what is the basis for this commonly-quoted statement by Vladimir Putin? As reported on Politifact: Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical ...
8
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2answers
566 views

Why is Russia going to withdraw from Syria?

According to this news article, President Putin says that Russia will start withdrawing from Syria, after a relatively brief presence in the area. Why does he choose to withdraw at this moment, and ...
4
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3answers
772 views

How exactly Russia benefits from recent terrorist strikes in Brussels?

After the terrorist attacks in Brussels in March, 2016, a Russian top official Zhirinovsky, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma of the Russia, the leader of the second biggest party on Russia and a five ...
10
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2answers
1k views

Russian government warned North Korea about the use of legal force against their nuclear threats. What is the general procedure in that case?

Basically, the Russian government warned North Korea that it will create legal grounds for an international forceful intervention when they become a legitimate nuclear threat, so my question is, what ...
2
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1answer
158 views

Awareness and opinion of Russians on USSR ethnicity-based population transfers

I'd heard about the deportation of the Crimean tatars for the first time from the Eurovision song 1944, which is one of many population transfers in the Soviet Union. How aware are Russian people ...
5
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1answer
165 views

How did the Russian Politburo (Bolshevik) elect its leaders?

As far as I understand, when Stalin got to lead the Politburo there was not a vote for leadership but it was whoever showed that they had the most power. But how can you quantify power? Did they find ...
4
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4answers
1k views

Why is Russia Today largely unsympathetic to Muslims in western countries?

I don't read much Russia Today, but some of its articles aren't very sympathetic to Muslims living in western countries. (There may be better examples, but this article cites Breitbart and is roughly ...
17
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2answers
2k views

What is the legal background for Russia's seat as a Permanent Member of UNSC?

At the UN's founding in 1945, the Soviet Union became one of the five permanent members of the Security Council. When in December 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, the Russia was arguably recognized ...
15
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2answers
3k views

Why there was no Marshall plan for 1990s Russia?

Just imagine the completely different world today if Russia were a part of Free World, member of NATO and a prosperous democracy, like Germany. Was it ever discussed, and if so, why wasn't it ...
0
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1answer
100 views

Has Putin's photo ops included wearing fluoro? [closed]

Apart from sport-related photo ops, one of the most frequent photo ops in Australia is the wearing of fluoro (Australian shortening of "fluorescent vest") by then PM Tony Abbott, preferably with a ...
14
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2answers
642 views

Is Turkey really buying ISIS Oil, like Russia says? [duplicate]

Is Turkey really buying ISIS Oil, like Russia says?
2
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0answers
92 views

How significant was the contribution of crime rate on the breakup of the USSR?

For the generation born in the 1970s in the USSR it was not uncommon to have nearly all of the classmates to be imprisoned for various crimes either during the school years or shortly thereafter. This ...
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1answer
427 views

Are there constituencies for Russia to destroy and annex Israel?

Recently, The grand mufti of Russia (the topmost Muslim cleric) has suggested to Putin of Russia to annex Israel and Mecca: I suggested to Vladimir Putin to deal with Israel as the Crimea. Suppose ...
8
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4answers
825 views

Did Turkey take revenge of Russian attacks on ISIS by downing the plane?

Is it possible that Turkey downed the Russian jet because they did not want Russia to be attacking ISIS (and maybe the Syrian Rebels)? It is quite clear that Turkey is the one who buys Oil from ISIS ...
11
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1answer
410 views

Had any world leader accused the Turkish govt/military of supporting ISIS/jihadi terrorists, before Putin's response to a Russian jet being downed?

In response to the downing of a Russian fighter jet by the Turkish military in November 2015, Vladamir Putin made a statement implying the Turkish government/military contained "accomplices of ...
2
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2answers
415 views

Is there a correlation between Russia's allies and denominations of Islam?

During the recent decade, the most loyal allies of Russia have been Iran, Iraq, and the official government of Syria. (highres image) These countries, including Assad-controlled territories of ...
5
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1answer
219 views

How are relationships between Russia and progressive Kurdish groups?

The Turkish PKK, known for its armed struggle for an independent Kurdistan, initially (1970s) described itself as communist, and more recently still rather radical as communalist. It is designated as ...
18
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4answers
2k views

What's the Russian interest in the Syrian civil war?

Lately the Russian Federation is showing increasing involvement in the Syrian civil war. They are moving troops to Syria to support Assad. During the 70th UN general assembly they demanded an ...

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