Moldova’s Pro-Europe Coalition should be able to continue governing after the November 30 parliamentary elections (see EDM, December 2, 3, 4). The coalition’s three parties—each running separately—garnered a combined 46 percent of the votes cast (down from 52 percent at the preceding elections in 2010).... MORE

Lacking mainstream political partners in Europe’s East, the Kremlin has recently picked the small, far-left Party of Socialists to advance Russia’s objectives in Moldova. The main objective is to undermine the pro-Western leadership team in Moldova, the European Union’s closest partner in the region. The... MORE

Moldova’s small Party of Socialists, pro-Kremlin and pro-Eurasia, has suddenly become Moldova’s single largest party after the legislative elections on November 30. Surpassing the Communist Party, Igor Dodon’s Socialists are now the leading leftist party, the primary recipient of Russian/”Russian-speaking” votes (but not confined to... MORE

The pro-Europe governing coalition has won narrowly, while the Red Left has shown new strength in Moldova’s parliamentary elections on November 30. The overall political outcome, if not entirely inconclusive, is at least somewhat ambiguous. The stakes in these elections far transcended Moldova in their... MORE

The armistice agreements, signed two months ago, have failed to protect Ukraine from further Russian offensive operations and encroachments on its territory. The Minsk agreements’ failure is a generally acknowledged fact by now. Debates have narrowed down to whether these agreements are irretrievable failures, or... MORE

G20 heads of state and government held their regular summit on November 15–16, in Brisbane, Australia. Within that large group, Western summiteers devoted much of their time to discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin about Ukraine. This was a follow-up to the same Western leaders’... MORE

TO READ PART ONE, CLICK HERE. Russian diplomacy has created its own terminology, complete with fine semantic nuances, to disguise the nature of Russia’s conflict undertaking in Ukraine and promote an incremental legitimization of Russia’s proxies there. Misleading terms such as “the Ukraine conflict,” “crisis in... MORE

Russia’s position has always been one of creative ambiguity regarding the recognition of territorial secessions from countries in Europe’s East (Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine). In each case, Russian military forces (already in place or intruding) were the direct enablers of secession. The Kremlin’s position on the... MORE

The European Union’s new High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief spokesman, Steffen Seibert, among many other European officials, have characterized the secessionist “elections” just held in Ukraine’s Donbas (eastern Ukrainian region encompassing Donetsk and Luhansk provinces)... MORE

The armistice agreements, signed on September 5 and 19–20, remain basically unimplemented on the Russian side, politically and militarily. Russia’s proxy forces have “de-escalated” their attacks on Ukrainian positions, but continue attacking at a lower level of intensity, inflicting Ukrainian casualties. Russia itself is far... MORE