Yurii Raikhel

In the days of Mao Zedong, and especially during the so-called Cultural Revolution in China, there was an official song entitled “Sailing the Seas Depends on the Helmsman.” Obviously, it was about Mao himself as the “Great Helmsman.” The irreplaceability of the leader seemed...

The situation on the Korean peninsula continues to deteriorate. During the sixth nuclear test in North Korea, an atomic bomb was used that was 10 times more powerful than one dropped on Nagasaki. South Korea’s parliamentary defense committee chief Kim Young-woo said that “the North...

The collapse of the USSR in mid-to-late 1991 had a dramatic effect on the South Caucasus. There was in fact a war between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which caused domestic difficulties. Besides, Moscow took a twofaced attitude, trying to hamper, one way or another, the formation of new post-Soviet...

The state of the environment is one of Ukraine’s many acute problems. As there are fewer and fewer places of wild and primeval nature left, they need more and more protection. This country’s main river, the Dnieper, is in the center of these problems. The problem is not only in the...

Can power be transferred in a republic by inheritance or by family relations? In other words, can there be political dynasties in a republic? There can be. Suffice it to recall the Kennedy brothers and the Bush father and son.Azerbaijan, too, is now showing a trend towards family-relations transfer...

The war in Syria and Iraq has entered a new phase. While the Syrian governmental army reports that is has in fact seized Aleppo, IS militants attacked from the rear. The seizure of Syria’s second largest city, which looks now like Grozny after Russian troops took it in 1999, seems to be a...

The Valdai forum is used by the Russian government to formulate and deliver urbi et orbi its ideas about the world order and Russia’s place within it. The forum has become significantly more politicized since 2014.Although its agenda sounded neutrally this year – “The Future...

This year, three British researchers – David J. Thouless, professor emeritus at the University of Washington, Professor F. Duncan M. Haldane of Princeton University, and Professor J. Michael Kosterlitz of Brown University – share the Nobel Prize in Physics...

Azerbaijan has held a referendum on making changes to the constitution. According to Central Election Commission, the turnout of voters was more than 60 percent, against the required minimum of 25 percent, two hours before the closure of polling stations. Nobody in fact doubted that the voting...

Uzbekistani President Islam Karimov’s death came as a relative surprise, exacerbating the problem of the transit of power in the Central Asian states. In Uzbekistan, the problem could be solved constitutionally, with Nigmatilla Yuldashev, Chairman of the Senate taking over as acting head of...