Last week, October 28, Czech President Miloš Zeman welcomed a delegation of representatives of a pro-Russian organization of Crimean Tatars. During the meeting, he reportedly declared that Crimea is part of Russia (Radio Prague, October 31)—exactly what Moscow wants to hear. The Czech president’s spokesperson... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. On October 30–31, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) main political decision-making body, the North Atlantic Council (at the ambassadorial level), visited Ukraine for a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg led the delegation... MORE

Ambassadors from the North Atlantic Council— the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) principal political decision-making body—visited Ukraine, on October 30–31, for a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attended the Commission’s meeting, and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who led the delegation,... MORE

An old Soviet joke had it that if Saudi Arabia ever became communist, Riyadh would be importing sand within five years. The situation around the once-prosperous Ukrainian port in Sevastopol suggests a similar dynamic: if the Russians occupy something, as they have in Crimea, it... MORE

Immediately following Russia’s forcible annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in February–March 2014, proposals surfaced to return to an old Imperial Russian tradition of referring to this land as “Taurida.” Last month (September 16), during a “Crimean Hellas” symposium in the republican capital of Simferopol, this... MORE

Moscow has seemingly long wanted to have it both ways (see EDM, April 2, 23) on the Montreux Convention, which governs naval passage through the Turkish Straits (the Bosporus and the Dardanelles). On the one hand, Russia has cast itself as a supporter of this... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here. On September 18, in the Minsk Contact Group, the Ukrainian delegation, headed by former president Leonid Kuchma, declined to negotiate with Russia and Donetsk-Luhansk toward codifying the Steinmeier Formula into an... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. The Minsk One and Minsk Two “agreements” (September 2014 and February 2015) dictated to Ukraine to accept a constitutional special status for the Russian-controlled Donetsk-Luhansk territory; to amnesty those criminally involved in seizing local administrations there; and to... MORE

Moscow exploits the new Ukrainian leadership’s inexperience as a chance to cement Russian control over Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk territories in a political settlement. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy looks eager for a quick-fix “peace” as a goal in itself, and he hopes for a meeting and... MORE

On September 4, the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) launched a pre-trial investigation against representatives of Motor Sich, one of the largest manufacturers of engines for airplanes and helicopters in the post-Soviet space, over the firm’s alleged “subversive activities” against Ukraine. The SSU asserts that... MORE