Read Part One here. This year’s Polish chairmanship barred Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov from entering Poland for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) year-end ministerial meeting. Warsaw cited international sanctions on Lavrov over his role in the 2022 re-invasion of Ukraine... MORE

Russia’s devastating invasion of Ukraine this year is not, for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), a dramatic watershed or existential crossroads as it has been made out to be. The OSCE has all along been mired in a deep crisis inherent... MORE

Read Part One Here.  Russia began installing managers and technical staff at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) soon after seizing the plant by military force on March 4 and well before officially annexing Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region to Russia (see Part One). Moscow completed the... MORE

The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) is the most valuable economic asset that Russia has plundered from Ukraine during the present military invasion. The Russians captured this nuclear plant with armored forces that broke into the plant’s perimeter on March 4. Russian military and National... MORE

On November 9, in a televised conference, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, General Sergei Surovikin, announced another major Russian setback (TASS, November 9). At Surovikin’s recommendation, Shoigu approved the pullback of Russian forces from the right bank of... MORE

*Click here to read Part One. The Ukrainian army’s liberation campaign in Kherson region has ground to a halt. This should not be surprising as the army is insufficiently equipped with heavy long-range artillery, tanks and helicopters. Hopes that the Ukrainian army would advance and... MORE

Russia designates its all-out aggression in Ukraine as a “special military operation,” avoiding the term “war.” Nevertheless, the Kremlin has imposed a “state of war” (voyennoye polozhenie) in the Russian-occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions of Ukraine. This decision caps the declaration of a... MORE

Spearheading regime-change attempts in Moldova is the Shor Party of businessman Ilan Shor, a presumed billionaire currently operating from Israel. The party has developed its social base through Shor‘s lavish spending on philanthropic projects (see EDM, October 20). His philanthropies notwithstanding, Shor’s image in Moldova... MORE

Moldova is experiencing an attempt at regime change through social protests mobilized by parties of the Russophile left. They are calling for the resignation of President Maia Sandu and her Western-oriented government and for pre-term parliamentary and presidential elections. All public opinion polls show the... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. The front lines cutting across the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions do not coincide with the Russian-declared “borders” vis-à-vis Ukraine. Under the treaties on the two regions’ incorporation as Russian oblasts (September 30) and the corresponding additions to Russia’s... MORE