Time
By Mikhail Gorbachev
April 15, 2020

During the first months of this year, we have seen once again how fragile is our global world, how great the danger of sliding into chaos. The COVID-19 pandemic is facing all countries with a common threat, and no country can cope with it alone.

The immediate challenge today is to defeat this new, vicious enemy. But even today, we need to start thinking about life after it retreats.

Many are now saying the world will never be the same. But what will it be like? That depends on what lessons will be learned.

I recall how in the mid-1980s, we addressed the nuclear threat. The breakthrough came when we understood that it is our common enemy, a threat to all of us. The leaders of the Soviet Union and the U.S. declared that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. Then came Reykjavik and the first treaties eliminating nuclear weapons. But even though by now 85% of those arsenals have been destroyed, the threat is still  there.

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Dear CCI Friends,

Mikhail Gorbachev sends a prescient message below! I doubt it will be printed in the U.S. mainstream media.

Please forward this email to everyone you know. We must find ways to get truth and reality out to larger American audiences. Be part of the link to make this happen!

Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives

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Dear Friends of CCI,

Our nation is in a Catch-22. I believe a major awakening could be ahead. Coronavirus, the tip of the iceberg of fear, has finally gotten the attention of America’s upper classes. Outstanding articles appearing in prominent places are questioning the very basis of America’s current national and international policies. Hopefully this will continue until there is a better understanding of our place in the world and treaties are in place.

Katrina vanden Heuvel captures our dilemma in the article below.

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Many of Russia’s official reactions are similar to those in the United States.

The Nation
April 9, 2020
By Stephen F. Cohen

Russia is on the front line of the coronavirus crisis in that it shares a very long territorial border with China/Asia. Nonetheless, many of its official reactions are similar to those in the United States.

Citizens are being told to self-isolate. New responsibilities, authority, and public prominence are being devolved to regional governors and mayors of large cities, particularly Sergei Sobyanian, the already accomplished and widely admired mayor of Moscow.  And leaders at all levels are suddenly relying heavily on, and deferring to, the expert opinion of medical authorities and other specialists.

But at this moment in Russian history, something else is being tested: not only Vladimir Putin’s personal leadership but the efficacy of the political-administrative system he has created since 2000—the “vertical” stretching from the Kremlin to all of the regions and cities of the world’s largest territorial country. Though Putin and his evolving system have faced previous crises—in particular, the Chechen War—this is the most serious and ramifying.

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Dear CCI Readers,

A number of you have asked how Russia is faring during this pandemic, what are their COVID-19 numbers and what is the Russian government doing about it.  We have the following just in from Andrew Korybko, an American Moscow-based political analyst.

Sharon Tennison
Center for Citizen Initiatives

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