The September 29-30, Eastern Partnership summit in Warsaw was another typically EU empty diplomatic soirée. The Viktor Yanukovych administration has ignored Western criticism of political repression and the EU has put all its eggs into the Ukraine basket to show success in the Eastern Partnership,... MORE

Since December 2010, the Belarusian leadership has abandoned any pretences of support for a democratic society, pursuing its internal enemies with unprecedented determination. At the same time, under pressure as a result of some internal unrest and economic difficulties, it has tried to exploit the... MORE

As WikiLeaks exposed details concerning “Eagle Guardian,” Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was concluding the first such state visit to Poland in eight years. For most of that period relations between Warsaw and Moscow had progressively worsened. But over the last year dramatic improvements have occurred,... MORE

For more than a month the media was full of accounts of the latest revelations from WikiLeaks broadcasting US diplomatic cables to the world. The international speculation about the ramifications of the world reading US classified diplomatic traffic gave birth to a media frenzy and... MORE

On October 30, Poland announced its intention to privatize the state-owned majority stake in the country’s second-largest oil industry concern, Lotos Group. The Polish government is inviting interested parties to pre-tender talks on the Lotos Group. The government has already talked with the Russian government... MORE

The Russian-Polish gas agreements (“Russian-Polish Gas Agreement Leaves Key Questions Unanswered,” EDM, November 2) mark an unprecedented turnabout by the Polish government, siding with Russia and Gazprom despite the European Commission’s cautionary advice (EDM, October 4, 5). The Commission’s concerns are of a legal and... MORE

On October 29 in Warsaw, the Polish government and state gas company signed long-term supply and transit agreements with Russia, despite strong cautionary advice and warnings of legal action by the European Commission (EDM, October 4, 5). The agreements prolong and entrench Polish dependence on... MORE

Using the Odessa-Brody oil pipeline as originally intended, south-north, is under active consideration again; this time, by the governments of Ukraine and Belarus. The pipeline is being used since 2004 in reverse, north-south, by Russian oil companies, for exports out of Odessa. Such reverse-use blocks... MORE

Moscow is exploiting a number of Polish vulnerabilities of both the objective and the subjective variety, all short-term, in the negotiations on a new supply agreement. The proposed draft would perpetuate those vulnerabilities, and cause Polish long-term dependence on Gazprom. For the time being, Poland... MORE

In the last couple of years, Russia has engaged in a rapprochement policy with Poland preceding the death of Poland’s President, Lech Kaczynski and many leading members of the government in a fatal air crash on April 10, outside Smolensk,. However, this policy certainly received... MORE