Although voter turnout was feeble last week, Putin’s United Russia Party was returned to parliament with three-quarters of the seats. Russian warplanes have resumed their relentless bombing of the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo on behalf of Bashar Assad’s ghastly regime. Helped by the slow recovery of oil and gas prices, the Russian economy is doing a little better than it has for several years. Concurrently, and what should be of serious concern in Ottawa, Russia has been a greatly increasing its presence in the Arctic and running more long-range bombers and submarines there and everywhere. Crimean Tatars have also begun to create problems on the Black Sea peninsula that Russian forces annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

Source: National Post September 25, 2016 21:22 UTC