On July 8 Moldova officially enters the campaign for repeat parliamentary elections, barely three months after holding regular quadrennial elections. The repeat elections are scheduled for July 29, to be followed by the election of a new head of state in the new parliament. The... MORE

The Ukrainian parliament on June 23 scheduled the next presidential election for January 17, 2010. Although the motion was passed by an overwhelming majority of 399 votes in the 450-seat unicameral chamber, it came as a result of the long confrontation between Prime Minister Yulia... MORE

On June 14, after the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) summit in Moscow formally created its new Collective Operational Reaction Forces (CORF), Russian President Dmitry Medvedev hailed this achievement as a "step toward creating a military force to be reckoned with, truly capable of responding... MORE

President Viktor Yushchenko has strongly condemned the 1944 deportation of Crimean Tatars on many occasions and ordered the Security Service (SBU) to open a special investigative unit examining crimes against humanity committed by the Soviet regime against them. Since the 1998 Ukrainian parliamentary elections, Rukh... MORE

On June 22 Ukrainian Naval Headquarters confirmed unofficially that the country's political deadlock has doomed the multinational military exercise Sea Breeze-2009. According to the Ukrainian headquarters sources, the U.S. Armed Forces European Command (EUCOM) and the U.S. Sixth Fleet notified Ukraine's defense ministry on June... MORE

Exercising his interim powers under the constitution, Moldova's outgoing president Vladimir Voronin has dissolved the parliament that was elected on April 5 and has called new parliamentary elections for July 29. Voronin's decree, issued on June 15, had become unavoidable after the opposition twice boycotted... MORE

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko announced on June 10 that three banks will be bailed out. The state will take over stakes ranging from 84-98 percent in the mid-size banks Rodovid, Ukrgazbank and Kyiv. The government does not plan to keep the banks permanently. They... MORE

The oldest opposition party in independent Belarus, the Popular Front, appears to be on the verge of yet another split within its ranks, one that according to its leader Lyavon Barcheuski, might result in its extinction. On June 20, the Popular Front will hold a... MORE

Belarus refused to attend the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) summit in Moscow on June 14. The summit made decisions to enlarge the size of collective rapid deployment forces, the scope of their missions, and the legal basis of their operations.President Alyaksandr Lukashenka cancelled the... MORE

According to an interview with Ukraine's Ambassador to Russia Konstantyn Hryshchenko, the country's bilateral relationship with Russia has sunk to its lowest level since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, testimony to the Russian state control of the media and its ideological crusade against Ukraine... MORE