Russian Nationalism and Colonialism

Russia’s Crimean Red Line Has Been Erased (Foreign Policy)

How Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Became Putin’s Spiritual Guru (Foreign Policy)

Russia’s Opposition Needs More Than One Savior (Foreign Policy)

Russia’s Crimes of Colonialism (Wall Street Journal)

Trump’s Russia Policy Is Appeasement (Wall Street Journal)

Putin’s Annexations May Cost Him Crimea (Wall Street Journal)

This Is No Time to Go Wobbly on Russia and the Ukraine War (Wall Street Journal)

Russia Tomorrow: Five scenarios for Russia’s future (Atlantic Council report)

Decolonize Russia (The Atlantic)

5 Scenarios for Russia After Putin’s Next Term (POLITICO Magazine)

Russia’s Slaughter of Indigenous People in Alaska Tells Us Something Important About Ukraine (POLITICO Magazine)

Here's How Ukraine Could Retake Crimea (POLITICO Magazine)

Lessons from America’s Forgotten War in Russia (The Bulwark)

Misfiring war in Ukraine creates potential for Russia’s disintegration (Financial Times)

Russia’s Colonized Populations Can Do Without All the “Westsplaining” (The New Republic)

Alexei Navalny Has a Crimea Problem (The New Republic)

The West May Get a Second Chance to Nurture a New Russia (The New Republic)

The Failed Dream of Mikhail Gorbachev (The New Republic)

Vladimir Putin’s Empire of Delusions (The New Republic)

Kleptocracy

Eric Adams’s Entanglements With Turkey Mark a New Level of Kleptocracy (The New Republic)

How the UK enables the kleptocrats of Eurasia and weakens its own rule of law (Chatham House, co-author)

A Ukrainian Oligarch Bought a Midwestern Factory and Let it Rot. What Was Really Going On? (POLITICO Magazine, excerpt from AMERICAN KLEPTOCRACY)

How Delaware Became the World’s Biggest Offshore Haven (Foreign Policy, excerpt from AMERICAN KLEPTOCRACY)

Michael Jackson Memorabilia Bought With Dirty Money of Dictator’s Son (Rolling Stone, excerpt from AMERICAN KLEPTOCRACY)

Tough US actions challenge Britain to step up the fight against kleptocracy (Financial Times)

In America, there is finally good news on the anti-money laundering front (Financial Times)

The United States of Dirty Money (The Atlantic)

Hunter Biden’s Art Show is a Window Into a Very Murky World (The Atlantic)

The Danger of Banning Foreign Lobbying (Foreign Affairs)

The United States' Problem With Financial Secrecy (Foreign Affairs)

Thanks, Paul Manafort — for showing that the U.S. needs to crack down on dirty money (Washington Post)

America is importing corruption. Here’s how to stop it. (Washington Post)

Charges against Manafort throw light on America’s secret financial havens (Washington Post)

The Fatal Flaw in the West’s Fight Against Autocracy (Foreign Policy)

Biden Might Stop a Sanctions Revolution (Foreign Policy)

Oligarchs’ Favorite U.S. Visa Might Not Last (Foreign Policy)

The U.S. Midwest Is Foreign Oligarchs’ New Playground (Foreign Policy)

U.S. Lawyers Are Foreign Kleptocrats’ Best Friends (Foreign Policy)

America’s Cultural Institutions Are Quietly Fueled by Russian Corruption (Foreign Policy)

The Dictator-Run Bank That Tells the Story of America’s Foreign Corruption (Foreign Policy)

How the US became the center of global kleptocracy (Vox)

The Investigator: Remembering Carl Levin (The American Prospect)

Russian Oligarchs Are Bludgeoning Western Media With Their Wealth (The New Republic)

How to Make Kleptocrats Fear America Again (The New Republic)

The Kleptocrat Next Door (The New Republic)

Meet Trumpworld’s Next Top Ukrainian Grifter (The New Republic)

Donald Trump’s Quiet Christmas Gift to the Kleptocrats (The New Republic)

Paul Manafort’s Lurid Shadow Hangs Over Impeachment (The New Republic)

How to Stop Kleptocrats From Stashing Their Cash in America (The New Republic)

The Law That Could Take Down Rudy Giuliani (The New Republic)

The Donald Trump Jr. Email Scandal Goes Well Beyond Russia (The New Republic)

This Professor Refuses to Disclose Her Work for an Autocratic Regime. Here's What Happened When I Confronted Her. (The New Republic)

Tony Blair Has Another Repressive Central Asian Autocracy to Sell You (The New Republic)

Rudy Giuliani Isn’t the Only Shady Lawyer in the Trump-Ukraine Scandal (GEN)

Money Talks: Len Blavatnik And The Council On Foreign Relations (Bellingcat)

U.S. Politicians Can’t Stop Taking Len Blavatnik’s Money (Bellingcat)

The U.S. Is a Good Place for Bad People to Stash Their Money (The Atlantic)

Defeating the Hydra (The American Interest)

How Democrats can end America’s role as world capital of kleptocracy (ThinkProgress)

Is the U.K. Finally Getting Serious About Cracking Down on Dirty Money? (World Politics Review)

Rich people love tax havens—and under Trump, the problem will only get worse (Quartz)

US/Azerbaijan: Lobbyists Continue to Flout Travel Rules (Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project)

The rearguard battle against Eurasia’s incredible spin-men (OpenDemocracy)

Congress Wakes Up, Finally Decides to Tackle Kleptocracy (Just Security)

Beware, Lobbyists: The Future of FARA Under a Biden Presidency (Just Security)

The US “Offshore” Industry and the Eurasian Connection (EurasiaNet)

Corruption

Ivanka Trump’s Starring Role in Her Father’s Financial Troubles (The New Republic)

Trump’s Claims About Fighting Corruption Are a Joke (The New Republic)

Rudy Giuliani’s Year of Living Dangerously (The New Republic)

Biden’s Super PAC Buddy Has a Paul Manafort Problem (The New Republic)

America enabled Afghanistan's corruption for years. The Taliban knew it. (NBC)

Connecting Fox News' Tucker Carlson, Hungary — and Trump (NBC)

Trump's impeachment can answer a lot about the Capitol riot. But not who funded it. (NBC)

The Investigator: Sen. Carl Levin (The American Prospect)

Secession

Pro-Trump Republican secession rhetoric in Texas and elsewhere is more than a punchline (NBC)

The Traitor Robert E. Lee Finally Gets His Just Deserts (The New Republic)

An Honest History of Texas Begins and Ends With White Supremacy (The New Republic)

How the Russians pretended to be Texans — and Texans believed them (Washington Post)

What All the Secession Talk Really Means (POLITICO Magazine)

When Oregon Ranchers Tried to Start Their Own State (POLITICO Magazine)

Why Russia Loves the Idea of California Seceding (POLITICO Magazine)

Putin's Plot to Get Texas to Secede (POLITICO Magazine)

Was the Republic of Texas Doomed From the Start? (Texas Monthly)

Inside the Russian effort to fuel American secessionists (ThinkProgress)

Russia Wants Texas and Puerto Rico to Secede (The Daily Beast)

The Kremlin’s California Dream (Slate)

Political violence and political extremism

What Ulysses Grant Can Teach Joe Biden About Putting Down Violent Insurrections (POLITICO Magazine)

America’s neo-Nazis don’t look to Germany for inspiration. They look to Russia. (Washington Post)

How Portland Became a Nightmare for Democrats (POLITICO Magazine)

How Liberal Portland Became America’s Most Politically Violent City (POLITICO Magazine)

How Militias Became the Private Police for White Supremacists (POLITICO Magazine)

Want to Meet America's Worst Racists? Come to the Northwest (POLITICO Magazine)

The “Oath Keepers” Are Today’s Blackshirts (The New Republic)

Owning Guns Doesn’t Preserve Freedom (The Atlantic)

Disappointed By Trump, The Alt-Right Seeks A NATO For Nativists (Talking Points Memo)

The Orlando shootings are a brutal reminder that no part of the US has a monopoly on hate (Quartz)

The Oath Keepers Providing Volunteer Security at Trump’s Minneapolis Rally Are Itching for a Civil War (The Daily Beast)

Foreign interference

We’ve Never Seen Anything Like the Menendez Indictment (The Atlantic)

How the American Right Fell in Love With Dictators, Over and Over Again (New York Magazine)

How Viktor Orbán Conquered the Heritage Foundation (The New Republic)

How the NRA Sold Out America (The New Republic)

How Russia Became the Leader of the Global Christian Right (POLITICO Magazine)

Russia’s Long and Mostly Unsuccessful History of Election Interference (POLITICO Magazine)

Putin's Magnificent Messaging Machine (POLITICO Magazine)

The Rise of the ‘Traditionalist International’: How the American Right Learned to Love Moscow in the Era of Trump (People For the American Way)

What the Impeachment Inquiry Means for the U.S. Relationship With Ukraine (World Politics Review)

Russia has tried to collude with US campaigns before—what’s shocking is that Trump Jr. went for it (Quartz)

Russia has tried to manipulate US elections since the Cold War—so how did they just now succeed? (Quartz)

Instagram Won’t Pull These Racist, Violent, Russian-Inspired Accounts (The Daily Beast)

Water Finds Its Level as Fox News Hires Dictator-Loving, Deep State-Loathing John Solomon (The Daily Beast)

Trump’s Big Lie About Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and Ukraine Falls Apart (The Daily Beast)

Rudy Giuliani Just Declared That It’s Open Season for Foreign Influence (The Daily Beast)

How Putin Played the Far Left (The Daily Beast)

Meet the Moscow Mouthpiece Married to a Racist Alt-Right Boss (The Daily Beast)

Russian-linked outlet fights Facebook transparency in U.S. courts (EurasiaNet)

The RT Election (Intersection Project)

Russian Propaganda in American Media (Intersection Project)

Post-communist space

Vladimir Putin’s Impotent Eurasian Union (Foreign Policy)

Alexander Lukashenko’s Belarusian Dictatorship Is Going Down in Flames (The New Republic)

NATO Is Expanding, and Everyone Is Curiously Silent (The New Republic)

Trump Has Squandered the Legacy of the Berlin Wall (The New Republic)

The Crime of the Century (The New Republic)

The U.S. Should Arm Ukraine—But Not Because This War Is Winnable (The New Republic)

The Obama Administration Is Gifting War Machines to a Murderous Dictator (The New Republic)

Even Vladimir Putin's Authoritarian Allies Are Fed Up With Russia's Crumbling Economy (The New Republic)

How Moldova Is Slowly Freeing Itself From the Grip of Corrupt Oligarchs (World Politics Review)

China’s Canceled Pipeline Puts Central Asia Back at the Integration Drawing Board (World Politics Review)

One After Another, Kazakhstan shuts down independent media outlets (The Guardian)

The Alleged Russian Mobsters in Trump World’s Orbit: A Dirty Dozen (The Daily Beast)

No, America Didn't Ruin Russian Democracy (The Daily Beast)

Congress Wakes Up, Finally Decides to Tackle Kleptocracy (Just Security)

Beware, Lobbyists: The Future of FARA Under a Biden Presidency (Just Security)

The Demons of Moldova (Slate)

The Last Time Ukraine was Truly Free (Roads & Kingdoms)

Astana Leans Hard on Media (Moscow Times)

Glitzy Façade Hides Azerbaijan's Dark Reality (Moscow Times)

Ukraine Should Avoid Kazakhstan's Example (Moscow Times)

Russia Has Lost Control of Central Asian Gas (Moscow Times)

Putin’s Chilling Kazakhstan Comments (The Diplomat)

Russia’s In The Driver’s Seat, But China’s Buying The Car (RFE/RL)

The Islamic State Threat in Central Asia: Spin or Reality? (Jamestown)

South of Southern Siberia (Intersection Project)

Houston delegation should pass on Kazakhstan (Houston Chronicle)

Syria Calling: Radicalisation in Central Asia [International Crisis Group, full report, edited and contributed]

Water Pressures in Central Asia [International Crisis Group, full report, edited and contributed]

Several Loud Cracks in an Almaty Bazaar (The Tuqay)

Russia’s Perception Problem (The Descrier)

Dictators Don’t Need To Develop Nukes When They Can Just Buy Them (Business Insider)

Other

The Left’s Deafening Silence on China’s Ethnic Cleansing (The New Republic)

The Secret Ingredients for Marijuana Legalization: Moms and Hispanics (The Atlantic)

China's War Against One American Journalist (Slate)

Portland’s Ugly Road to MLS Status (Sports Illustrated)

Tule Lake: Memories of Japanese Internment (The Diplomat)

Innocent Bystander (Houston Press cover feature)

Conduct Unbecoming ((Houston Press cover feature)

Doubling Down: Texas and Casino Gambling (Houston Press cover feature)

Tilting at Rainbows (Minneapolis City Pages cover feature)

Polling the New Normal (Guernica)

Laughter, Memories, and Oden (Slam)