Latest Articles about Europe's East
TYMOSHENKO DEFIES YUSHCHENKO ON OIL AND GAS EXPLORATION
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has ordered the government of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko to allow the U.S. company Vanco to proceed with its oil and gas exploration project in the Ukrainian part of the Black Sea. Visiting U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez also warned... MORE
OLIGARCHS WIELD POWER IN UKRAINIAN POLITICS
The leading Ukrainian magazine Korrespondent (June 12) published its annual list of wealthy Ukrainians. The most surprising new information was the estimate of Donetsk oligarch Renat Akhmetov’s wealth. Akhmetov, the head of Systems Capital Management, is worth $31.1 billion, making him the wealthiest person not... MORE
WILL PARLIAMENTARY CRISIS LEAD TO TYMOSHENKO’S DISMISSAL?
The coalition of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (BYT) and President Viktor Yushchenko’s Our Ukraine--People’s Self-Defense (NUNS) no longer has a majority in the Ukrainian parliament. Two deputies quit the coalition, so it controls 225 seats in the 450-seat chamber, one seat short of a... MORE
THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE IN UKRAINE–RESURRECTING THE PAST
The Kremlin has once again raised the hoary issue of the rights of Russian language speakers in Ukraine, apparently as part of its campaign to make Russian the official lingua franca of the CIS and to apply more pressure on its neighbor during a time... MORE
HIGH-LEVEL NATO DELEGATION IN OUTREACH VISIT TO UKRAINE
NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer headed a delegation of the North Atlantic Council (NAC), the alliance’s standing decision-making body in Brussels, comprising the 26 member countries’ ambassadors, on a visit to Ukraine on June 16 and 17. The visit was the first high-level... MORE
BELARUS-RUSSIA SUMMIT: PERSPECTIVES
The press services of the presidencies of Russia and Belarus have announced that the leaders of these countries, Dmitry Medvedev and Alyaksandr Lukashenka, will meet in Brest on June 22. It will be the first bilateral meeting of the two presidents. Reportedly, the meeting is... MORE
UKRAINE PREPARING LEGAL PROCEDURES FOR RUSSIAN FLEET’S WITHDRAWAL ON SCHEDULE
Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers is drafting a bill for submission to the Verkhovna Rada (parliament) on preparations for terminating the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s deployment in Ukraine in 2017. Concurrently with that draft law, the Cabinet is working on a comprehensive assessment of the economic,... MORE
RUSSIA STALLING TALKS ON FLEET WITHDRAWAL FROM UKRAINE
Moscow opposes Kyiv's suggestions to begin discussing preparations for the withdrawal of Russia's Black Sea Fleet from Ukraine's Crimea, with sufficient lead time to complete the multi-year process by the 2017 deadline. Russia's position seems to imply that the withdrawal process might only get underway... MORE
NEW TWISTS IN THE RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN DISPUTE
The continuing Ukrainian-Russian war of words took on a new twist on June 13, when the Russian Foreign Ministry accused Ukraine of acting jointly with unnamed foreign companies to develop oil and gas fields illegally off the Crimean coast of the Black Sea shelf, claiming... MORE
RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN RELATIONS REVEAL DEEPER PROBLEMS
President Viktor Yushchenko’s first meeting with newly elected Russian President Dmitry Medvedev failed to resolve the outstanding issues between Ukraine and Russia. Despite Yushchenko’s optimism that all of these issues would be resolved, “the negotiations taking everything into account became very heated.” These issues cannot... MORE