*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here.   Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea and the resulting de facto border changes have overturned the geographical and political foundations of the 2003 Russia-Ukraine treaty on the Azov Sea and Kerch... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   The 2003 treaty between Russia and Ukraine on “Cooperation in the Use of the Azov Sea and Kerch Strait,” officially in effect to this day and “sine die,” purports to place those two bodies of water outside... MORE

The November 25 “incident” in the Black Sea involving Russia’s illegal seizure of three Ukrainian military vessels and their personnel—in actuality, an explicit violation of the norms of international maritime law (see EDM, November 26, 28, 29)—has become a “legitimate” pretext for Moscow to conduct... MORE

  Russia has perpetrated acts of war against Ukraine in the Kerch Strait and the adjacent portion of the Black Sea on November 25 (see EDM, November 26, 28, 29). Moreover, during the preceding months, Russia had systematically and aggressively obstructed Ukrainian and international shipping... MORE

The tweet by United States President Donald Trump, canceling his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was such a shock for the Kremlin that a response was postponed until “official information” would arrive (RIA Novosti, November 29).... MORE

Russia is continuing to implement its “boa constrictor strategy” in the Sea of Azov, aimed at strangling the economy of Ukraine’s littoral areas (see EDM, February 22, April 12, May 22, 31, June 11, 28). The overall situation has sharpened since this spring, when the... MORE

On October 17, 18-year-old student Vladislav Roslyakov walked into his polytechnic school in the Russian-occupied Crimean town of Kerch, ascended to the second floor of the building and opened fire from a rifle. Roslyakov had planned the assault so that an explosion would go off... MORE

Russian military strategists who have analyzed regional military conflicts between 1999 and 2014 conclude that even a less-developed party may be able to at least partly degrade the technological advantage of a stronger adversary if the weaker power can attain information superiority over its opponent... MORE

A Moscow-based propagandist says Crimean Tatar activists from Ukraine are promoting radical nationalist and Islamist ideas among the Crimean Tatar diaspora in Uzbekistan and thereby threatening the stability of this Central Asian republic. The Kremlin clearly hopes such an argument will ensure Tashkent does not... MORE

Last month (May 2018), the Russian Federation lost an important lawsuit lodged against it by “Everest Estate LLC and Others,” 18 Ukrainian companies that had held assets in Crimea prior to Moscow’s illegal annexation of this peninsula in early 2014. The Permanent Court of Arbitration... MORE