Latest Articles about Europe's East
Ukrainian Government Fears a New Winter Gas Crisis
In December Ukrainian officials descended on Washington with one overriding mission –to convince the Obama administration that without the financial help of the IMF, Ukraine might be unable to supply the EU with Russian gas this winter. This badly disguised attempt at blackmail on the... MORE
Belarus Cracks Down on Youth Activists
Since late November, the Belarusian authorities have targeted members of the Malady Front (Young Front, MF), an organization registered in the Czech Republic but not in Belarus, as well as Eurapeyskaya Belarus (European Belarus), the members of which overlap.On November 16-17, the press secretary of... MORE
Ukraine-EU Summit a Failure?
The Ukraine-European Union (EU) summit held in Kyiv on December 4 failed to move the country closer to the West. An association agreement, viewed in Ukraine as a serious step toward EU membership, was not signed because a free trade zone accord which is part... MORE
Viktor Yushchenko’s Foreign Policy Agenda
Viktor Yushchenko has trailed badly in opinion polls in the last year with ratings of less than 5 percent, but has benefitted from the collapse of Arseniy Yatseniuk’s election campaign (rankings of candidates in 2008-2009: www.uceps.org/ukr/poll.php?poll_id=91). Yushchenko is now the main “Orange” competitor to Yulia... MORE
Lukashenka Makes Key Leadership Changes in Belarus
On December 4, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka made sweeping changes to the higher echelons of the leadership. The changes reflect both adverse news on the economic front and the installment of some hard-line personalities on the eve of a series of elections that will monopolize... MORE
Gazprom Agrees Not to Penalize Naftohaz, Gas Price to Grow in 2010
Gazprom and Naftohaz Ukrainy on November 24 signed addenda to their earlier contracts according to which Naftohaz will not pay fines for buying less gas in 2009 than stipulated by the contracts. Gazprom also allowed Naftohaz to buy less gas in 2010, 33.75 billion cubic... MORE
Moldova on Automatic Pilot After the Presidential Election Fails Again
On December 7 Moldova failed in its fifth attempt this year to elect a head of state in parliament. The Communist Party, which governed from 2001 to September 2009 and retains 48 seats in this parliament, blocked the election of Marian Lupu, presidential candidate of... MORE
Customs Union with Russia and Belarus Raises Doubts in Kazakhstan
Fielding questions from viewers on state-controlled television channels on November 13 Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev announced that on November 27 the leaders of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan would gather in Minsk to sign final agreements on a Customs Union. On November 17, at a cabinet... MORE
Islamic Terrorist Threat in the Crimea
The head of the Crimean Interior Ministry, Gennadiy Moskal, has drafted new legislation to ban extremist groups in Ukraine (Ukrayinska Pravda, October 27). Moskal is also a Kyiv parliamentary deputy from the Our Ukraine-Peoples Self Defense faction (NUNS) and a member of the Peoples Self... MORE
Putin, Tymoshenko Agree on Gas and Deride Yushchenko, Saakashvili
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Yulia Tymoshenko met in Yalta on November 19 and reached a number of agreements, confirming once again that their relationship is of a special character. Putin reiterated that Naftohaz Ukrainy, the debt-ridden state-controlled oil and gas... MORE