The latest session of the Minsk Contact Group (see EDM, February 18) lifted a curtain’s corner on several disputed issues that had not been publicly aired thus far. The Ukrainian delegation had raised these issues in a position paper within the Minsk Group in November... MORE

From January 21 through February 14, Russian and proxy forces killed 13 Ukrainian soldiers and wounded at least another 19 along the frontline in Ukraine’s Donbas. Most of these casualties were inflicted by snipers, some of whom were apparently deployed from Russia’s interior for a... MORE

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian government are preparing to host a summit of heads of state and government, aiming to mobilize a more effective international response to Russia’s seizure of Crimea from Ukraine. The summit is planned to inaugurate the “Crimea Platform,” a multi-level... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. Kyiv is pinning its hopes on the new administration of United States President Joseph Biden to help rebalance and restart both the Normandy forum and the Minsk Contact Group (see Part One in EDM, February 4). The Minsk... MORE

Ukraine is multiplying calls for changing the composition of the “Normandy Four” group (Russia, Germany, France, Ukraine) and its derivative Minsk Contact Group (see below). The Kremlin has effectively used these negotiation forums from 2014 to date in order to conserve, instead of end, its... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. Russia, not the Minsk Group, will reinvent the Minsk Group, and is working on it (see Part One in EDM, January 28). The object is not the 12-nation Minsk Group Conference (this has been inactive since the mid-1990s),... MORE

The 44-day Second Karabakh War between Armenia and Azerbaijan, its Russian-mediated outcome, the launch of Russia’s own peacekeeping operation, and Turkey’s rise as a regional power have all exposed the Minsk Group’s irrelevance. Mandated by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) back... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here. The Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Karabakh was the only Soviet-legacy conflict that did not feature Russian “peacekeeping” troops during the 26-year period between the first armistice, in 1994, and the latest armistice,... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. Under the November 9–10, 2020 armistice declaration, Russia’s “peacekeeping” mission in Upper (Nagorno) Karabakh is limited to 1,960 motor-rifle troops with light weapons and armored personnel carriers (see EDM, November 12, 13, 2020). According to Russian President Vladimir Putin,... MORE

Russia’s “peacekeeping” operation in Upper (Nagorno) Karabakh, which ended the 44-day war last November, is laying the foundation of a Russian protectorate in this Armenian-inhabited territory of Azerbaijan (see EDM, December 8, 10, 2020). This undertaking shows some familiar features of Russia’s earlier “peacekeeping” model... MORE