Commentary / World May 18, 2016
May Day, Russia, Mayday!
Russian President Vladimir Putin used this year's holiday marking the Soviet victory in World War II to whip up jingoistic hysteria.
Constantine Pleshakov
For Constantine Pleshakov's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Commentary / World Apr 11, 2016
War returns to the Caucasus region
The frozen war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh region has thawed, with serious implications for the region.
Commentary / World Jan 6, 2016
Pacific dreaming in Moscow
Russia's government announces yet another set of impotent plans to develop its long-neglected Pacific region.
Commentary / World Nov 24, 2015
With friends like Vladimir Putin, who needs enemies?
Avenging the City of Light, Russia and the West can turn Syria into the desert of darkness, but from that darkness nothing good will come.
Commentary / World Nov 16, 2015
Russian Navy's red tide rising
Short of naval assets but wanting to flex its muscles at sea, Russia is employing a maritime version of the "hybrid warfare" it used to take control of Crimea.
Commentary / World Oct 21, 2015
Russian eagle takes steroids, reads Hegel, seeks recognition
The goal of Vladimir Putin's aggressive foreign policy may be a new contract with the West in which Russia is recognized as a leading power and treated as an equal.
Commentary | THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW Feb 19, 2006
On your own in the Ice Age
MOSCOW -- If scientists are bent on calling the overall weather mayhem of the past few years "global warming," more power to them, but this winter the term looked like a huge misnomer to the population of Eurasia -- from the Pacific to the ...
Commentary | THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW Jan 20, 2006
Even a child knows better
MOSCOW -- Occasionally, we all get wrong ideas about ourselves. A middle-aged person starts dressing like Leonardo di Caprio, a pizza deliveryman begins emulating "The Godfather," a school teacher turns herself into a Gestapo interrogator. Recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin decided he was Napoleon. Two ...
Commentary | THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW Jan 3, 2006
Putin 'exiles' the high court
MOSCOW -- Exiling someone is so very Russian. Although centuries passed by and regimes changed, authorities retained exile as a great tool of punishment and manipulation. Less objectionable than execution or imprisonment, it effectively uprooted and silenced the regimes' opponents -- and sometimes destroyed ...
Commentary | THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW Dec 15, 2005
Russian rightwingers ride benzene spill
MOSCOW -- The city of Khabarovsk is ill-starred. Founded by hopeful entrepreneurs as a major trade hub in the Russian Far East on the doorstep of China, it turned into a big dump -- a symbol of missed opportunities and disillusionment. For nearly 70 years, ...