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piqer for: Globalization and politics Global finds
Neil Hauer is an independent analyst focused on Syria, Russia, and the Caucasus. Based in Tbilisi, Georgia, he served as senior intelligence analyst at The SecDev Group, an Ottawa-based geopolitical risk consultancy, for three years. He is presently engaged primarily on Russia’s role in the Syrian conflict.
From Russia With News: Gay Purge in Chechnya and Crumbling Soviet Infrastructure
From Russia With News is the regular podcast series from The Moscow Times, an English-language newspaper based in Moscow.
The present episode features two very knowledgeable experts, Katya Sokirianskaya and Maxim Trudolyubov. Katya, one of the world's leading authorities on the North Caucasus, appears first to discuss the reemergence of detentions and torture of LGBT individuals in the Chechen Republic. Katya describes the use of collective punishment against detainees' families if they attempt to flee and the indifference of the Kremlin towards the issue.
Maxim then comes on to describe the present degradation of the ubiquitous 1960s-era Soviet apartment blocks, colloquially known as khrushchovki after Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. At least half the population of Russia still lives in these buildings, which were meant to be temporary. Addressing this issue will cost trillions of rubles and immense political will
The podcast is insightful and if the quality of guests is regularly as high as this episode, it is well worth listening to. As a North Caucasus specialist myself I can hardly think of a more esteemed researcher on the region than Katya, and Maxim knows Russian domestic policy and economics as well as anyone. I'll at least be keeping an eye on the future interviewees for this podcast.
