Moldova has a new government, the Alliance for a European Moldova (AEM), since February 28, after elections and an agitated interregnum. It is a minority coalition and, moreover, an internally divided one, requiring cooperation with the Communist Party’s “constructive opposition” (see EDM, March 5). The... MORE

Moldova’s new government, the Alliance for a European Moldova (AEM), is a reformatted version of the Alliance for European Integration (AEI) that came to power in Moldova in 2009. Its revised title conveys an emphasis on internal transformation, instead of premature ambitions for membership in... MORE

Following yet another protracted political crisis, the Moldovan parliament has voted to approve a minority government, the Alliance for a European Moldova (AEM), on February 18, thanks to the Communist Party’s support. The AEM government needed 51 votes for approval. It could only muster 39... MORE

The foreign affairs ministers of Russia, Germany, France, and Ukraine—the “Normandy Four” countries—met on February 24, in Paris, to review the situation in Ukraine’s east. Russian and proxy forces had captured Ukraine’s Debaltseve area on February 18, breaching the armistice signed at the “Normandy Four”... MORE

The political and military terms of the Minsk Two agreement (February 12) and capture of Debaltseve by Russia’s proxies breaching the ceasefire (February 18) show the extent of Ukraine’s entrapment into Russia’s conflict stratagems. Russia has set those traps; the existing international system shows no... MORE

On February 18–19, Ukraine decided to request the United Nations Security Council to authorize a peacekeeping contingent or police mission that would discourage further advances of Russian and proxy forces in Ukraine’s east (Ukrinform, February 18, 19). Debaltseve fell to Russian and proxy forces on... MORE

*To read Part One please click here *To read Part Two please click here  Unlike the Minsk One ceasefire agreements of September 2014, the Minsk Two agreement of February 12, 2015, goes far beyond a military armistice. It is overloaded with political provisions which, if implemented,... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. The capture of Debaltseve in Ukraine on Wednesday (Interfax, February 18) by Russian and proxy troops, following prolonged bombardment by their heavy missile systems, is not simply a prima facie breach of the February 12, 2015, “Minsk Two”... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande have jointly prevailed on Ukraine to sign another armistice with Russia’s proxy forces operating in Ukraine’s east (Kremlin.ru, Osce.org, February 12; see EDM, February 12). Signed on February 12, in Minsk, Belarus,... MORE

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow during the night of February 6–7. Merkel and Hollande had conferred with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Kyiv during the preceding night, eliciting his consent to a... MORE