The topics of Russia’s plight and future prospects came up again and again last week, in the December 7 video-conversation between Presidents Joseph Biden and Vladimir Putin, at the Summit of Democracies that the Biden administration organized and hosted on December 9–10, as well as... MORE

Presidents Joseph Biden of the United States and Vladimir Putin of Russia have agreed, in their December 7 video-dialogue (see EDM, December 8), to create working groups that would address Russia’s concerns regarding Ukraine’s place in the European security order. Those concerns directly relate to... MORE

The stakes were high when Presidents Joseph Biden of the United States and Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation held a two-hour, bilateral video-conference on December 7 (see EDM, December 8). Prior to the virtual summit, pro-Kremlin commentaries in Moscow warned of Russia and the... MORE

For the past several weeks, much of the world’s attention has been focused on an apparent Russian buildup of forces near the Ukrainian and Belarusian borders, raising fears that Moscow may be preparing for a new aggression against Ukraine this coming winter (see EDM, December... MORE

Presidents Joseph Biden of the United States and Vladimir Putin of Russia held a one-on-one video-conference, on December 7—their fifth direct dialogue (three by telephone, one in person, one by video) in the ten months since Biden took office. The US President initiated both the... MORE

Kyiv’s western allies continue to express concern over the buildup of Russian troops on the border with Ukraine (see EDM, November 8, 29). US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States was “concerned about reports of atypical Russian military activity” (Voice of America—Russian... MORE

In the past several weeks, relations between Moscow and Washington nosedived, with multiple overlapping potential crises and increasingly toxic rhetoric aggravating an already dangerous situation. The Ukrainian crisis has been simmering to one degree or another since Russia took over Crimea in 2014 and sponsored... MORE

Ukraine is actively preparing to implement new legislation in the field of Territorial Defense (Armyinform.com.ua, November 2)—namely, the Law of Ukraine “On the Fundamentals of National Resistance,” which was signed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last July (President.gov.ua, July 29). This Law stipulates that Ukraine’s... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. While Kyiv, Berlin and Paris pursue (with varying degrees of intensity, frantically in Kyiv’s case) a high-level “Normandy” meeting as a goal for its own sake, without conditions or a clear agenda, Moscow is setting maximalist conditions for... MORE

Russian diplomacy is testing its rogue-state practices on its Western diplomatic counterparts, and finds them malleable. On November 17, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov unilaterally publicized the confidential messages recently exchanged between himself and his German and French counterparts, Heiko Maas and Jean-Yves Le Drian,... MORE