The sharp escalation in artillery battles in the Donbas (eastern Ukraine) war zone one day after the January 28 telephone conversation between United States President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin was certainly not a coincidence. No leaks about the content of the 45-minute-long... MORE

German Chancellor Angela Merkel received Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on January 30, in Berlin, for an “exchange of views” on the “conflict in Ukraine,” “the peace process and the implementation of the Minsk armistice” (Bundeslanzlerin.de, January 27, 30). Those code words are widely used in... MORE

The Roshen confectionery plant in the Russian city of Lipetsk will close in April for political and economic reasons, Roshen’s press service has announced. Production in Lipetsk has shrunk threefold since 2013 because of the sanctions imposed by Russia on imports from Ukraine, falling purchasing... MORE

Ukroboronprom, the state entity responsible for Ukraine’s military-industrial complex, announced that it would begin joint production with the United States company Aeroscraft of a Ukrainian variant of the M16 assault rifle—to be renamed the WAC-47. Sergei Mykytyuk, the director of Ukroboronprom subsidiary Ukroboronservis, told journalists... MORE

Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine, starting in 2014, has naturally had a galvanizing effect on the Ukrainian military-industrial complex and its potential. According to various sources (see below), this progress has been most apparent in areas including heavy weapons and equipment, production of small arms... MORE

Three years into war and domestic turbulence, Ukraine entered 2017 with news of a high-profile criminal incident. Serhiy Pashynsky, a notorious Ukrainian member of parliament (MP) from the People’s Front (PF) party, one of the ruling coalition’s two member-factions, shot and wounded Vyacheslav Khimikus, an... MORE

This past fall, Ukraine came under a media influence campaign that agitated for reinstating economic ties with Russia. Over the course of September­–December 2016, several Ukrainian websites published a series of news stories detailing calls by various domestic enterprises and regional and municipal communities to... MORE

Franz Klintsevych, a high-ranking member of the Russian Federation Council (upper house of parliament), denounced the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), on January 8, for their activities in the Baltic Sea region. According to Klintsevych, who serves as the first deputy... MORE

The Kremlin has deliberately obscured the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR), in eastern Ukraine, under a fog of confusion. As such, on a single day last week, a Russian analyst argued that the two self-styled republics are about to... MORE

December 8 marked the 25th anniversary of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The document that did away with the USSR was signed by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus in Viskuli, at a hunting lodge belonging to the Communist Party leaders, in the... MORE