Recent developments in Ukraine have rapidly escalated into a political crisis after the authorities allowed special “Berkut” police units to crack down on protesters rallying in Kyiv’s Independence Square (“Maidan Nezalezhnosti”) before dawn on December 1, resulting in over a hundred people being injured. The... MORE

Russia has temporarily derailed the European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement (AA) and Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) deal at the EU’s Vilnius summit, November 28–29. Moscow achieved this success through economic pressures on Ukraine and threats to escalate such pressures, which the EU could... MORE

Many Russian and Western analysts have assumed that Belarusians and Russians are so similar ethnically that the nearly 1 million Belarusians living in the Russian Federation will inevitably identify with the larger nation and assimilate into it. But in fact, most are retaining their Belarusian... MORE

In theory, the Russian Air Force (Voyenno-Vozdushnye Sily—VVS) is in “permanent readiness,” with 80 percent of its assets in a serviceable condition. Nonetheless, the real condition of the VVS, according to an October 28 article in Kommersant, is far from this mythical status; only 42... MORE

Ukraine failed to sign the Association Agreement (AA) and Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) agreement with the European Union at the Vilnius summit (November 28–29) under the EU’s Lithuanian presidency. The negotiations had been completed and the documents initialed in March 2012, ready... MORE

Inter-ethnic tensions unexpectedly flared up in Kabardino-Balkaria at the end of November. Residents of the ethnic Balkar–majority town of Belaya Rechka blocked the roads into the town and seized surrounding land to build homes. The republican government, made up mainly of ethnic Kabardinians (a.k.a. Circassians)... MORE

During the third Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius, on November 28–29, the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton and Georgia’s Foreign Minister Maia Panjikidze initialed the Georgia-EU Association Agreement as well as the deal on a Deep and Comprehensive... MORE

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych refused to sign an association and free-trade agreement with the European Union at the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius on November 29. He blamed this on Russian pressure and the West’s failure to provide assistance. Nevertheless, EU officials said the doors... MORE

Kazakhstan plans to introduce new anti-corruption legislation and to rid the judicial system of corruption. But the country has a long way to go to move up from 133rd place in the Corruption Perceptions Index, where it was listed by Transparency International in 2012. Ranked... MORE

Dzianis Melyantsou, from the Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies, a Minsk-based think tank funded by the West, subjects the European Union’s Eastern Partnership (EaP) policy to criticism (https://www.eesc.lt/uploads/news/id521/Bell%202013_6(36).pdf). According to Melyantsou, for countries that are not willing to join the EU, the conditionality approach (aid... MORE