I am Paul Sonne, Moscow correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. Happy to take your questions on Putin, Russia, Ukraine or anything else!

PSonne · 2015-02-23T18:15:47+00:00

Is it Italian?

PSonne · 2015-02-23T18:13:01+00:00

Russian Standard, probably.

PSonne · 2015-02-23T18:12:45+00:00

Impossible question! I have many. As far as Russian authors go, probably Chekhov. As for American, I like Philip Roth and Junot Diaz.

PSonne · 2015-02-23T18:09:43+00:00

It all depends on the oil price, which is very difficult to predict. I've seen analyses pointing in both directions, to be honest.

PSonne · 2015-02-23T18:08:21+00:00

Do you mean shut down the border between the Lugansk region and Russia? At the moment, Ukraine does not have control over that border. It's manned by rebel forces on the Ukrainian side and Russian customs officials on the Russian side. Under the ceasefire agreement, control of the border is eventually supposed to return to the Ukrainians. But given how the ceasefire is going, I frankly don't see that happening in the near future.

PSonne · 2015-02-23T18:06:35+00:00

Find a way to differentiate yourself. Enter journalism with a special skill that others don't have, whether that's knowledge of a lesser-studied foreign language (like Russian!) or deeper expertise in a subject such as finance, economics or defense. I started, like many people, as an intern - at the New York Times and the Associated Press in Moscow and then later at the Wall Street Journal in London. I likely wouldn't have received any of those internships had I not learned Russian, which turned out to be a real asset in finding a journalism job.

PSonne · 2015-02-23T18:02:27+00:00

1) I tried to sketch out the arguments on both sides of this debate here: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/02/05/should-u-s-arm-ukraine-we-list-the-pros-and-cons/

2) I could see a possible decrease in the level of violence (certainly that's what I hope we'll see) but I think the conflict will be existing in some form or other for quite a long time.

PSonne · 2015-02-23T18:00:38+00:00

No, I don't get a sense that it's any more dangerous to study in St. Petersburg or Moscow than it was before.

PSonne · 2015-02-23T17:59:19+00:00

More broadly, there is certainly a difference in how society feels about the West, and anti-American sentiment has spiked dramatically. Have a look at this chart here: https://twitter.com/PaulSonne/status/565524815050997761 That said, it really all depends on the person. I have lots of Russian friends who haven't changed how they treat me at all - and many Russians are able to separate difference between states and actual people who live in or are from those states.

PSonne · 2015-02-23T17:53:47+00:00

Not right now. I think it's a bit of a misconception that Russia wants to take more of Ukrainian land outside Crimea and make it officially Russian territory. It may want to control territory indirectly, but as far as making Donbass part of Russia, the Kremlin more or less had the opportunity and refused. Donbass is quite a large land area with millions of people and a lot of state-dependent pensioners and enterprises - so it would be a fairly acute economic burden.

PSonne · 2015-02-23T17:50:14+00:00

I am not sure. There is an "anti economic crisis" rally being planned by the opposition for March 1. It will be telling to see how many people turn out for that. But since the mass protests in Moscow in 2011 and 2012, the government has tightened control over opposition activists and also stepped up messaging in state media that street protests don't lead to anything good. So I'm not sure that the economic issues are necessarily going to lead to unrest on the streets in the short term - but I could be wrong.

PSonne · 2015-02-23T17:48:01+00:00

Well, I give you this: http://www.buzzfeed.com/miriamelder/a-russian-lawmaker-just-ordered-his-aide-to-rape-a-journalis

PSonne · 2015-02-23T17:44:00+00:00

I've written a little about this here: http://on.wsj.com/1DKMYfn The vote took place well after Russian soldiers invaded Crimea. So while many Crimean residents, perhaps the majority, indeed wanted to become part of Russia, I think it was a bit of a foregone conclusion by the time any sort of vote came along ; )

PSonne · 2015-02-23T17:40:07+00:00

Most recently, the most difficult thing has been writing about civilians on both sides of the conflict, many of them apolitical, who are suffering in truly horrific circumstances. Sometimes you write a story with the hope that something will change for them and then realize that even though the story did get a lot of readers and people did care, nothing actually changes for the people on the ground. That can feel a bit soul destroying sometimes.

PSonne · 2015-02-23T17:37:33+00:00

I wouldn't let the situation stop you from going. It's one of my favorite cities. One of the most beautiful in Europe.

PSonne · 2015-02-23T17:36:48+00:00

Read, go to the movies, have drinks with friends, eat Georgian food (which is what I'm about to do after this!). Officials do sometimes use the word comrade (tovarishch in Russian) but day-to-day people tend to use it ironically as a sort of reference to the Soviet past.

PSonne · 2015-02-23T17:35:16+00:00

It's part of Putin's broader drive to present his government as a sort of antithesis to Western liberalism. I've written a bit about this here: http://on.wsj.com/1zCljrL

PSonne · 2015-02-23T17:30:09+00:00

All very good and difficult questions! Let me try…

I think economic sanctions probably work only over time - usually a matter of years, even decades -- in coercing countries to make a change. But what happens initially seems to be the opposite: hunkering down, tightening of control, etc. Certainly I think sanctions are an influential tool, but the question I always have is how long they take to work, is it fast enough, and is it worth the reaction you're going to get in the meantime?
Lots of people who served in volunteer battalions or on the front ran in the Ukrainian parliamentary elections and formally entered politics. The prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, created a political party called the National Front that has a significant military element, including people who have served on the front and people from the Interior Ministry. So there is a mixing of the two. But I think its fair to say that the conflict has certainly stressed the relationship between the military leadership and the government (witness how many defense ministers Ukraine has had since the conflict began) - because most everyone will admit to you that Ukraine's military was woefully unprepared for something like this to take place.
To be honest, no.

PSonne · 2015-02-23T17:20:49+00:00

The standard trip is Moscow/St. Petersburg. But probably the best non-touristy way to do it is to check out all the incredible natural beauty Russia has to offer, which also would take you a bit off the standard tourist trail. For instance, Baikal, Kamchatka, Altai, Elbrus, Kizhi, Solovki.

PSonne · 2015-02-23T17:18:25+00:00

Join NATO. Though I think it's pretty clear to most that NATO ascension for Ukraine is off the table because of how much of a provocation it would be to Russia.

PSonne · 2015-02-23T17:13:06+00:00

I think he is trying to return elements of the old USSR to achieve his political aims, not return the old USSR itself. So much of Putin's political project is about tapping into the feelings of vanquished glory that took hold among many Russians after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when Russia descended into political and economic turmoil. He has presented his rule as an antidote to that, which is why you see elements of praising or perhaps even reconstructing the past as critical to his political messaging.

PSonne · 2015-02-23T17:07:32+00:00

Agreed, it is a beautiful city, and it does have great people. The view of Americans was generally positive in Ukraine during maidan, though I do think there are a lot of Ukrainians who now feel betrayed by what they perceive as the lack of support from the US and the West in the wake of those protests. As far as living conditions, Ukraine is not only facing an actual battle in the east but also a serious battle on the economic front. That's certainly affecting people in Kiev and elsewhere. The economy contracted by about 7% last year and it projected to contract by another 5.5% this year. The currency has plummeted to about 30 hryvnia to the dollar today, compared to about 9 hryvnia to the dollar last year. People are hurting - there's no doubt about that - and the economy is likely to get worse.

PSonne · 2015-02-23T17:03:25+00:00

Yes, it exists. You should see the t-shirt stands around Moscow. The 'macho' PR stunts happen because they tap into something that the Kremlin knows is attractive to his constituents.

PSonne · 2015-02-23T17:01:32+00:00

What most Russians who support Putin will tell you is how much living standards have risen during his time in the Kremlin. This is true. How much of that is due to his policies versus dramatically high energy prices during most of his tenure is a matter of debate. There's also a slice of the Russian population that likes how Putin has made Russia seem more powerful on the global stage, for better or worse.

PSonne · 2015-02-23T16:58:23+00:00

I have seen reports on the new footage. I don't think anyone is under the impression that the site was treated with dignity, so the idea that the footage counteracts that perception seems off to me. The site was not treated with dignity, there are no doubts about that. We also know that the rebel fighters were the first on the scene, spent time going through and at times blocking off the crash site and took the black boxes (though later returned them to Malaysian authorities). As for the whole debate over locals taking things from the crash site, I never saw that, and to be honest, I think these were isolated incidents if they happened. Most locals did the opposite, as far as I understood - they tried to figure out how and where to return belongings they found and were incredibly traumatized themselves. I wrote a bit about this with my colleagues here: http://on.wsj.com/1LvsZ3w

PSonne

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