Russia is angling for recognition as the West’s ally in combating “international terrorism.” This, ostensibly, is the rationale of Russia’s military intervention in Syria—an operation made possible by the forfeiture of the Pax Americana in the Middle East, with ripple effects now engulfing Europe. The... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. The latest public opinion survey, commissioned by the US International Republican Institute (IRI), confirms a deepening chasm between the “pro-Europe” coalition government and voters in Moldova (Infotag, Unimedia, IPN, November 10). The coalition’s three parties (the Liberal-Democrat Party... MORE

Moldova’s internal collapse is, at last, concentrating the West’s attention. Western officials are generally surprised and aghast. They worry, moreover, about the potential repercussions in the region: Moldova does, after all, account for a 700-kilometer stretch of the Baltic-Pontic isthmus. Blindsided by the “Moldovan success... MORE

Germany’s Foreign Affairs Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier hosted a meeting of his Russian, French, and Ukrainian counterparts (“Normandy” group), on November 6, in Berlin, to lift the December deadline on the implementation of the Minsk armistice in Ukraine. This move, a foregone conclusion, may turn the... MORE

Meeting on November 6, in Berlin, the ministers of foreign affairs of the “Normandy” group (Russia, Germany, France, Ukraine) finally acknowledged that the Minsk armistice cannot be implemented by this year’s end, as originally intended. They agreed to postpone the implementation into next year, without... MORE

Moldova is experiencing a political coup, executed by billionaire Vlad Plahotniuc’s team within the “pro-Europe” coalition government, and coordinated with leftist and pro-Russia parties in the parliament and outside it. The aim of this operation is to expand and guarantee Plahotniuc’s control of Moldova’s state... MORE

Moldova seems about to become the second state in Europe’s East, after Georgia, to be captured by the wealthiest local businessman—in Moldova’s case, the billionaire Vlad Plahotniuc. He and Georgia’s Bidzina Ivanishvili share some common traits, including their lack of commitment to a European orientation.... MORE

On October 27 in the Minsk Contact Group, the Ukrainian delegation presented a concept document to serve as a basis for the “law on local elections in the temporarily occupied areas” of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk provinces (see accompanying article). President Petro Poroshenko has personally... MORE

Recasting Russia’s armed proxies as democratic mandate-holders—and tutoring them to look like that on an election’s schedule—is an innovation of the Minsk armistice and ensuing negotiations on the status of the occupied territories in Ukraine’s east. Russia had never seriously attempted to sell this approach... MORE

Ukraine held local elections, on October 25, throughout the country, including most of the government-controlled territory in the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, but not in the Russian-controlled territory of those provinces. There, the Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” (DPR, LPR) prevented the holding of local... MORE