On January 9, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Walter Steinmeier in Berlin in order to discuss the crisis in Ukraine and to propose hosting a heads of state meeting in Astana between the leaders of Ukraine, Russia,... MORE

Despite a noticeable decline in the intensity of violence in the North Caucasus, Russian experts on the region are convinced the situation is set to become worse rather than improve. The Kavkazsky Uzel website estimated that 290 people died and 144 people were injured in... MORE

Weakened by a war with Russia-backed militants, Ukraine has been living through an energy crisis of proportions unseen since the 1990s. Blackouts began across the country this past fall due to natural gas cutoffs from Russia and the suspension of coal supplies from eastern Ukrainian... MORE

Despite the apparent deadlock in armed clashes in eastern Ukraine, an idea to bringing together the presidents of Russia and Ukraine, together with their peers from Belarus and Kazakhstan as well as the leaders of France and Germany, gained momentum at the end of last... MORE

The armistice in Ukraine’s east affords Russia a breathing pause to institutionalize the secessionist Luhansk and Donetsk “people’s republics.” The “Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR)” is even less institutionalized and more chaotic than the nearby Donetsk republic (“DPR”). Various armed formations in the “LPR” are operating,... MORE

On January 1, 2015, a military unit of the “Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR)” ambushed and killed the commander of the LPR’s rapid-reaction battalion, Lieutenant-Colonel Aleksandr Bednov (“Batman”) and six of his men. They were shelled from both sides of the road while traveling in two... MORE

Alexandre Grigolashvili, a Georgian volunteer who was fighting on the Ukrainian side in that country’s ongoing war against Russia-sponsored separatists, was killed in action on December 19, 2014 (Channel 1 TV, December 20, 2014). On December 20, Georgia’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) issued a statement... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here. In order to stimulate centrifugal processes in Ukraine, the Kremlin needs the Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” to remain within Ukraine’s political system pro forma, albeit outside Kyiv’s control de facto.... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. Moscow proposes to resolve the conflict in Donbas (eastern Ukrainian region encompassing the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces) by turning the Russian-controlled Donetsk and Luhansk territories into proto-states, to be linked with the rest of Ukraine in a quasi-confederal... MORE

On December 4, Major-General Oleksandr Rozmazninov, of Ukraine’s General Staff, reported a Russian deployment of the Iskander-M tactical missile system to Crimea. (Dzerkalo Tyzhnia, December 4). This and other Russian military deployments to the annexed peninsula have prompted debates on the shift in the military... MORE