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Latest Articles about Crimea
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Sevastopol Port in Russian-Occupied Crimea Near Bankruptcy
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
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Russia Considering Renaming Crimea as ‘Taurida’
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
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Moscow Now Says Montreux Convention Vital to Defense of Yalta-Potsdam World
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
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Steinmeier’s Formula: Its Background and Development in the Normandy and Minsk Processes (Part Three)
*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
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Steinmeier’s Formula: Its Background and Development in the Normandy and Minsk Processes (Part Two)
*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
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Steinmeier’s Formula: Its Background and Development in the Normandy and Minsk Processes (Part One)
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
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The Motor Sich Factory and Its Covert Ties to Russia
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
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Putin Overplays Hand With Normandy Summit, Inadvertently Rescues Zelenskyy From the Brink (Part Two)
*To read Part One, please click here. The endgame that derailed the summit of “Normandy” group leaders (Russia, Germany, France, Ukraine), planned for September 16, revealed the degree of the novice Ukrainian presidency’s readiness for concessions to Russia, as well as Russia’s all-or-nothing approach. This... MORE
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Putin Overplays Hand With Normandy Summit, Inadvertently Rescues Zelenskyy From the Brink (Part One)
The Kremlin has derailed the summit of the “Normandy” group’s leaders (Russia, Germany, France, Ukraine), which was supposed to be held on September 16, in Paris. Apparently, Russian President Vladimir Putin determined at the last moment that his far-reaching objectives for this summit could not... MORE
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Russia Imposes Its Own Terms on Ukraine for Release of Prisoners (Part Two)
*To read Part One, please click here. Vladimir Tsemakh, who topped Russia’s priority list in a recent prisoner release agreement between Moscow and Kyiv, was flown from Ukraine to the Russian capital; he may now be back home in the Russian-occupied Donbas territory (see below).... MORE