Latest Eurasia Daily Monitor Articles
WILL UKRAINE, RUSSIA SOLVE PROBLEM OF PERSONAE NON GRATAE?
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko found time in their schedules to meet on the fringes of the St. Petersburg economic forum on June 10. They discussed measures to settle Moldova’s Transnistria issue, which they agreed not to make public, and said... MORE
ARMENIAN PM FORMS NEW CABINET AFTER ELECTION TRIUMPH
Armenia’s President Robert Kocharian and his top political allies have cut a new power-sharing deal resulting from their landslide victory in the May 12 parliamentary elections. In a decree made public on June 8, Kocharian formally approved the composition of a coalition government headed by... MORE
A CHANCE TO CIVILIANIZE RUSSIA’S “PEACEKEEPING” OPERATION IN MOLDOVA
An “Extraordinary Conference of the States Parties to the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe” (CFE) opens today in Vienna, to run through June 15. Russia exercised its right -- as one of the 30 state-parties to that treaty -- to convene this conference on... MORE
PUTIN SAILS THROUGH HIS LAST G-8 SUMMIT
As is usually the case, the weeks preceding the G-8 summit saw a dramatic escalation in tensions between Russia and other members of this elite club, in particular the United States. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who hosted this year’s summit, had remained noncommittal since the... MORE
RUSSIA CONSIDERS INCREASING COAL USE TO FACILITATE GAS EXPORTS
A series of deadly incidents has dealt Russia's coal industry a serious blow, as the sector's safety standards apparently remain low. Nonetheless, the Russian government is still considering long-range plans to increase the use of coal in power generation in order to reduce natural gas... MORE
WAYS TO TRANSFORM RUSSIA’S “PEACEKEEPING” OPERATION IN MOLDOVA
The United States, NATO, and European Union are prepared to negotiate with Russia at an international conference next week about transforming Russia’s “peacekeeping” operation in Moldova into a genuinely multilateral operation with Russian participation. They are offering to Russia the “carrot” of ratifying the 1999-adapted... MORE
TURKMENISTAN BACK IN FORMER USSR’S ORBIT
With the unexpected death of Turkmen-President-for-Life Saparmurat Niyazov on December 21, 2006, many Western governments believed that a new era of openness and access to the country’s natural gas deposits, the fifth largest in the world, was about to begin. Six months later, it appears... MORE
TNK-BP KEEPS KOVYKTA LICENSE, FOR NOW
Throughout this year, Russian regulators have targeted the Kovykta gas development project, officially for failing to fulfill production quotas. However, the regulatory pressure was understood to be aimed at putting the giant Kovykta gas field, which is estimated to hold up to 3 trillion cubic... MORE
PLAYING CATCH-UP WITH RUSSIA ON CASPIAN ENERGY TRANSIT
U.S. government officials are fanning out to the Caspian region after the signing of Russia’s monopolistic agreements on energy transit with three Central Asian countries and Austria in May (see EDM, May 14, 16, 17, 29, 31). Those agreements, mostly of intent, would kill the... MORE
GATES VISITS BISHKEK, BUT PRO-MOSCOW MOOD PREVAILS IN KYRGYZSTAN
On June 5 U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates visited Kyrgyzstan to discuss the status of the U.S. military base in Bishkek with Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev and Kyrgyz Minister of Defense Ismail Isakov. In the past, treating the Kyrgyz-U.S. military cooperation as an important... MORE