The Belarusian Parliament has scheduled the next presidential elections on December 19. By the deadline to register on September 24, the names of seventeen candidates had been accepted by the Central Election Commission, after two were rejected from the original nineteen. Each candidate required the... MORE

On September 28, Moldovan Parliamentary Chairman and acting head of state, Mihai Ghimpu, dissolved the parliament by decree effective on September 29, and scheduled parliamentary elections for November 28. Both dates had been made public two weeks ahead of the decree. A new parliament will... MORE

Ten years after the murder of the opposition journalist, Georgy Gongadze, Ukrainian prosecutors announced that the investigation was completed and the case will shortly be referred to court. The investigation said the police killed Gongadze on the orders of the interior minister. Both at home... MORE

Within one week of each other, Moldovan presidential aspirant Marian Lupu and the long-time contender for top leadership in Kyrgyzstan, Feliks Kulov, paid demonstrative visits to Moscow, ahead of elections in the two countries. There they signed partnership agreements on behalf of their respective parties... MORE

The image of the Viktor Yanukovych administration continues to deteriorate in the eyes of Ukrainians and Europe, as seen in opinion polls and a September 13 statement by the Political Assembly of the center-right European Peoples Party, the most influential political group in the European... MORE

The Ukrainian government is stepping up its own efforts to discourage Gazprom’s South Stream project. Overestimating Russia’s capacity to implement it, Kyiv fears that Moscow would shift the gas transit to Europe into South Stream, bypassing Ukraine via the Black Sea, and devaluing Ukraine’s own... MORE

On September 3 at 5.30 p.m., a relative found the body of Aleh Byabenin at his dacha in Pyarhurava, not far from Minsk. He had ostensibly committed suicide by hanging himself. Police from the Dzyarzhinsk district reportedly found two empty bottles of balsam in the... MORE

Fundamental differences have emerged in talks on a joint venture between Russia’s Gazprom and the Naftohaz Ukrainy national oil and gas company. Not only do Kyiv and Moscow differ on which assets the joint venture should be based on and on the gas price issue,... MORE

“CORF [Collective Operational Reaction forces] will be no worse than NATO,” claimed Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, only one year ago. Today, these words are used in Russia to popularize the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the CORF within the post-Soviet space. They are also... MORE

The Party of Regions, according to an extensive analysis in Ukrayinska Pravda (August 30), is seeking to obtain a majority in local councils in the October local elections. If the Party of Regions secures a majority in the area between the Don (the Russian-Ukrainian border)... MORE