As October 26, the date of the upcoming parliamentary elections in Ukraine, approaches ever closer, many current legislators are finding themselves in increasingly dire straits. In addition to the tense political campaign, an increasing number of Ukrainian parliamentary candidates and top officials have been falling... MORE

With several days remaining until the polls open in Ukraine on October 26, it is clear that President Petro Poroshenko’s party will win the early parliamentary election hands down. Opinion polls show that the Bloc of Poroshenko (BoP) is heading for a victory no less... MORE

Presidents Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine and Vladimir Putin of Russia met with top European leaders in several overlapping formats on October 16–17, in Milan. The tenth Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), a talk shop of more than 50 heads of state and government, provided a convenient occasion... MORE

Religious-driven conflicts in the North Caucasus are caused by the government’s interference in religious matters, according to Enver Kisriev, a Moscow-based expert of Dagestani origin. “I do not understand, why the political leadership of Russia thinks that it will be able to establish some sort... MORE

In the world of labor union–business relations, it is commonly understood that, oftentimes, the threat of a strike, as long as it is credible, can achieve more than an actual strike itself. On the one hand, the business against which a strike may be launched... MORE

The most recent Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) summit attracted a sizeable crowd of world leaders to Milan last week (October 16–17), but the formal agenda was overtaken by the efforts to manage the violent conflict between Russia and Ukraine and facilitate dialogue between presidents Vladimir Putin... MORE

Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014, and Moscow’s mixture of threating full-scale invasion of Ukraine’s east combined with promoting separatism, analysts seized on an earlier article written by General Valeriy Gerasimov as offering a conceptual framework for those actions. Collectively, journalists quickly settled... MORE

The Russia-Ukraine war has presented the most serious threat to European energy security since the end of the Cold War. Almost half of the Russian natural gas delivered to European markets in 2013 crossed Ukraine—82.3 billion cubic meters (bcm) out of 167.5 bcm in total... MORE

Western powers lost control and, to some extent, lost comprehension of the situation in Ukraine during the Euromaidan mass protest movement and its aftermath. They then trailed behind the events throughout Russia’s war against Ukraine to date. The European Commission’s lame-duck status during most of... MORE

The Euromaidan protests that took place during winter 2013–2014, in Ukraine, have cast their shadow over Tajikistan. The short-term effect of the protests (particularly the Russian response), along with the increasingly violent and intractable nature of the civil war in Syria, makes comparable protests unlikely... MORE