On September 24 the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin led government ministers and CEO's of some global energy companies on a visit to the Yamal Peninsula in northwestern Siberia. Putin announced that Russia intends to become an exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG) worldwide on... MORE

Another appeal to Western governments from renowned public figures, this time over Georgia, has appeared in European newspapers (Le Monde, Die Welt, The Guardian, Corriere della Sera, September 22, 23). Signed by the Czech, Lithuanian, and Estonian former heads of state and government (Vaclav Havel,... MORE

A representative group of Ukraine's cultural elite has alerted Western governments and public opinion to Russia's mounting threats against Ukrainian independence. Alarmed by Moscow's latest moves, the signatories of the appeal are also concerned by the failure of Western governments to respond by using existing... MORE

Russian naval operations in August 2008 highlighted the security deficit in the Black Sea. As a littoral country, Russia misused the territory of another littoral country, Ukraine, as a staging ground for attacking a third littoral country, Georgia, using its Black Sea Fleet based in... MORE

On September 15 Russia officially warned that it would intercept and detain Georgian coastal guard boats in the Black Sea, if these attempt to interfere with ships that trade with Abkhazia, or if the Georgian boats otherwise trespass Abkhazia's "maritime border" into "Abkhaz waters." The... MORE

On September 15 in Moscow, the Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov signed agreements on military cooperation with the "defense ministers" (Russian citizens Kishmaria and Tanayev) of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. On the same occasion Russia's Border Guard Service command, subordinated to the Federal Security Service... MORE

On September 10 General Motors, partly owned by the U.S. government, changed its position and allowed its ailing German subsidiary, Opel, to be "rescued" by a Kremlin-controlled consortium. The German government strongly pressed for the Russian solution in preference to an American one. The issue... MORE

On September 9 the United Nations General Assembly condemned the "forced displacement" of the population from Georgia's Abkhazia and South Ossetia territories, strongly upheld the displaced populations' right to return there, and defined these territories as parts of Georgia.Georgia had initiated the General Assembly's resolution... MORE

Two electoral cycles behind most of Eastern Europe, Moldova stands on the brink of the post-post-Communist era. Uniquely in Moldova, moreover, the post-communist transition and the post-post-communist era will be telescoped into a single stage, the start of which is now. Other East European countries... MORE

Moldova's parliamentary elections on April 5, subsequent confrontations, and repeat elections on July 28, along with ambiguities and loopholes in the fundamental law, dragged the country's political system into a constitutional crisis. The system is now working its way out of that situation in a... MORE