August 21:
As relations with the West worsen as a result of the crisis in Ukraine, Moscow is ramping up its information war in Europe. The Wall Street Journal reports that, pursuant to a directive from Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Russian government is upgrading its "foreign media apparatus." This effort includes the expansion of the German staff of its "Rossiya Segodnya" news agency, as well as the provision of nearly $40 million in additional funds to TV channel Russia Today to bankroll its push into the French media market.
The effort is being driven by Moscow's desire to alter the existing global media order - and change world perceptions of Russia and its objectives. "We simply want to end the dominance of the so-called Anglo-Saxon media," Kremlin media czar Dmitry Kiselyov has said. "We believe they do pure and simple propaganda, distorting the image of the world, counter to the interests of humanity."
August 22:
Amid declining bilateral relations, the United States is trying to break its dependency on Russia for access to space. According to The Moscow Times, NASA is poised to award a multi-billion dollar contract to one of three commercial space firms to build a craft to carry astronauts to the International Space Station. The move represents the first concrete step by the U.S. away from its current reliance on the Russian Soyuz rocket to transport passengers to the ISS at a cost of nearly $63 million a seat.
Despite the Kremlin’s claims that it has altered Russia's longstanding "culture of abortion," demographic data suggests that serious problems still remain. Today, in contrast to Soviet times, abortions no longer outnumber live births. But, as research included in the most recent issue of the journal Demograficheskoye Obozreniyedetails, abortion - which is still practiced as the primary means of birth control in the Russian Federation - remains a prevalent phenomenon, with nearly 1/3rd of all pregnancies being terminated. More worrisome still, according to researchers Viktoriya Sakevich and Boris Denisov, is that the decline in abortions is attributable not solely to more progressive family planning, but also to a decline in the absolute number of Russian women of prime childbearing age.
Moscow police have detained five activists for attempting to drape a Ukrainian flag over the walls of the Kremlin,reports The Moscow Times. The five have been charged with staging an unsanctioned rally. The stunt follows an effort, days earlier, by a different group of activists to affix a Ukrainian flag to a skyscraper in the Russian capital.
August 23:
Just as they were beginning to warm, Russia's historically-tense relations with Japan have suffered another hit.Japan Today reports that Russian authorities have seized a Japanese whaling vessel and its crew on accusations that the ship strayed into Russian territorial waters. The incident took place in mid-August in the Sea of Okhotsk, Japanese authorities have confirmed.
August 25:
Russia's deteriorating ties to the West won't extend to fast food, apparently. Qatar's Peninsula newspaper reports that, according to Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich, the Kremlin has no plans to permanently shutter McDonald's franchises within the Russian Federation, as many believed after three storefronts were closed in Moscow and health inspections launched against other restaurants across the country. "No one is talking about it at all," Dvorkovich tells the Itar-TASS news agency.
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