Latest Eurasia Daily Monitor Articles
MOSCOW HINTS IT MAY FORMALIZE INCORPORATION OF SOUTH OSSETIA
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov's aide, Gennady Bukayev, told a joint session of North Ossetia's and South Ossetia's leaderships in Vladikavkaz on March 22 that Moscow has "decided in principle" to merge the two entities into a single one within Russia. The question is not... MORE
EUROPEAN UNION‘S ENERGY PAPER: A MUFFLED CALL TO A SLOW WAKEUP
"A wakeup call to Europe" is how commentators on both sides of the Atlantic describe the political effect of three rounds of man-made interruptions in Russian energy deliveries in January and February. The timing seemed ideal for the European Union‘s eagerly awaited Green Paper on... MORE
RUSSIA-WEST STANDOFF IN TRANSNISTRIA: OVERALL POST-SOVIET ORDER AT STAKE
Russia has chosen Transnistria as the scene of an unprecedented, head-on confrontation with the European Union. Moscow wants to force a reversal of the border and trade regulations corresponding to international law and norms that were introduced on March 3 to close Europe's largest black... MORE
BELARUS: END GAME
Five days after the presidential election of March 19, protesters continued a vigil on October Square. The authorities arrested more than 250 people between March 20 and 22, and administered beatings to many others, and in the early hours of March 24, hundreds of riot... MORE
KYRGYZSTAN MARKS FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF TULIP REVOLUTION
A year has passed since March 24, 2005, Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan, when crowds seized the main government building in Bishkek and President Askar Akayev fled the country. The popular euphoria over the ouster of the corrupt regime quickly changed to anxiety as tensions rose... MORE
DESECRATION OF KORAN COULD PROVOKE ATTACK IN DAGESTAN
On March 3 Russian security officials swept through several villages in the Khasavyurt district of Dagestan, North Caucasus. According to RIA-Dagestan, "Officers of the Ministry of Interior Affairs [MVD] and the Federal Security Service [FSB] are combing the Khasavyurt area adjacent to Chechnya with the... MORE
UKRAINE BREAKING RANKS WITH EUROPE AND MOLDOVA ON TRANSNISTRIA
Ukraine's March 3 decision to cooperate with the European Union and Moldova on Transnistria is proving short-lived. On that day, at the EU's insistence, Ukraine began enforcing a new border and customs regime agreed with Moldova on the Transnistrian sector of the Ukraine-Moldova border, thus... MORE
GEORGIA EXTRICATING FROM GAZPROM’S BEAR HUG
The winter now ending was almost certainly the last one during which Georgia had to face Gazprom's commercial blackmail and supply cutoffs. Within the coming months, Georgia will begin receiving Azerbaijani gas through the Shah Deniz-Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum (Turkey) transit pipeline and will also have an opportunity... MORE
YUSHCHENKO CHOOSING BETWEEN TYMOSHENKO AND YANUKOVYCH?
Ukraine will abstain from assessing the Belarusian presidential election until after the OSCE delivers its verdict, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said on March 20, one day after Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenka won the highly controversial poll. Yushchenko was equally noncommittal when asked by journalists a... MORE
NEWFOUND U.S. INTEREST IN AZERBAIJAN PROMISES MORE HEADACHES FOR BAKU
On March 13-14, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried and U.S. Special Negotiator for Eurasian Conflicts and U.S. Minsk Group co-chair Ambassador Steven Mann visited Azerbaijan for a two-day official trip. During their visit, the U.S. officials held talks... MORE