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Latest Articles about Europe's East
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Moldovan Billionaire Overthrows Coalition Government From Within (Part Two)
Moldova is experiencing a political coup, executed by billionaire Vlad Plahotniuc’s team within the “pro-Europe” coalition government, and coordinated with leftist and pro-Russia parties in the parliament and outside it. The aim of this operation is to expand and guarantee Plahotniuc’s control of Moldova’s state... MORE
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Moldovan Billionaire Overthrows Coalition Government From Within (Part One)
Moldova seems about to become the second state in Europe’s East, after Georgia, to be captured by the wealthiest local businessman—in Moldova’s case, the billionaire Vlad Plahotniuc. He and Georgia’s Bidzina Ivanishvili share some common traits, including their lack of commitment to a European orientation.... MORE
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The Sine Qua Non Safeguards For Donetsk-Luhansk Elections
On October 27 in the Minsk Contact Group, the Ukrainian delegation presented a concept document to serve as a basis for the “law on local elections in the temporarily occupied areas” of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk provinces (see accompanying article). President Petro Poroshenko has personally... MORE
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Minsk Process Refloats Donetsk-Luhansk Election Plans
Recasting Russia’s armed proxies as democratic mandate-holders—and tutoring them to look like that on an election’s schedule—is an innovation of the Minsk armistice and ensuing negotiations on the status of the occupied territories in Ukraine’s east. Russia had never seriously attempted to sell this approach... MORE
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Mustafa Cemilev Denies Russian Allegations of Crimean Tatars Recruiting Fighters for the Islamic State
In recent months, a debate arose about the formation of a Muslim Battalion in Ukraine (see EDM, September 5). This was soon followed, in the Russian media, by rumors about the Crimean Tatar leadership’s alleged links with the Islamic State (IS). On October 5, 2015,... MORE
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Putin Wants Ukraine to Renegotiate Terms Directly With Donetsk-Luhansk
Ukraine held local elections, on October 25, throughout the country, including most of the government-controlled territory in the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, but not in the Russian-controlled territory of those provinces. There, the Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” (DPR, LPR) prevented the holding of local... MORE
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Ukraine’s Local Polls, Marred by Irregularities in Big Cities, Show East-West Split Remains
The ruling coalition won most local elections across Ukraine on October 25, according to preliminary figures. Results from the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) are expected next week, but it is already clear that compared to the 2010 local elections, the kleptocratic elites who used to... MORE
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Belarus Redoubles Efforts to Connect With the World
While the outcome of this past month’s presidential elections in Belarus continues to be discussed, the major news refrains have become the debate on a Russian airbase in Belarus, rapprochement with the West, the prospects for economic reform, and labor migration to and from Belarus.... MORE
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Another Punished People, the Pontic Greeks, Posing New Problems for Moscow in Crimea
The Soviet government tried to force out the Pontic Greeks from the southern part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in the early 1920s, and then subjected that community to three waves of deportation to Central Asia in 1937, 1942 and 1949. Now,... MORE
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Kazakhstan Walking Tightrope Amid Russia-Ukraine Divide
At a time when relations between Russia and the West are at an all-time low because of Moscow’s meddling in Ukraine and Syria, Kazakhstan is finding it increasingly complicated to preserve the balance. In the span of a week this month (October 2015), Kazakhstani President... MORE