The proceedings of the annual Munich Security Conference always attract keen attention in Moscow, and last weekend (February 14–16) was no exception. The discussions at this high-level forum are indeed highly consequential most years, but Russian interest continues to be stimulated by reflections on Vladimir... MORE

Bilateral Ukrainian-Turkish cooperation in the defense sector continues unabated even after the consequential 2019 elections in both countries. On January 23, the Joint Ukrainian-Turkish Commission on Defense-Industrial Cooperation met again, in Kyiv (Ukrainian Government, January 23). This time, the Turkish delegation was headed by the... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin has appointed Dmitry Kozak as deputy head of the presidential administration and principal representative for policy toward Ukraine, on top of Kozak’s continuing mission as presidential envoy for Moldovan affairs. Kozak will be handling the conflicts in Donbas and Transnistria, as... MORE

From Russia’s perspective, the conflicts it has itself instigated in the greater Black Sea region are strictly separate cases. Moscow regards the conflicts over Ukraine’s Crimea and Georgia’s Abkhazia and South Ossetia as settled and closed. By contrast, Russia seeks political settlements to the active... MORE

Since the 1991 implosion of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation’s relations with its immediate Black Sea neighbors—the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine—have veered from frigid to open conflict. Russia engaged in a brief war in 2008 with Georgia; then, six years later,... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   Kyiv and Moscow finalized a bilateral deal to transport Russian natural gas to Europe through Ukrainian territory (see Part One in EDM, January 22). Although the new five-year agreement, signed on December 30, 2019, represented a compromise... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   Russian President Vladimir Putin has apparently tasked Dmitry Kozak to further develop a negotiation channel with his counterparts in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s team. Putin has for this purpose transferred Kozak from the post of deputy prime... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin apparently intends to replace Vladislav Surkov with Dmitry Kozak as principal executant of Putin’s policies toward Ukraine, including Ukraine’s Russian-occupied areas. Surkov and Kozak have also covered other “frozen-conflict” theaters in their respective portfolios until now. The Kremlin has not issued... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   Russia uses a strict-constructionist approach to defend the Minsk “accords” of 2014 and 2015 and the negotiation formats (“Normandy Quartet” and the “Contact Group on Ukraine”) that it imposed on Ukraine five years ago under military duress.... MORE

In the wake of last month’s (December 2019) “Normandy” summit (see EDM, December 11, 12, 2019), and awaiting the same forum’s April 2020 top-level meeting, Ukrainian officials are airing proposals to revise the Kremlin-imposed Minsk “accords” of 2014 and 2015. The “accords,” designed to legalize... MORE