On June 3, Belarusian TV showed an interview with Roman Protasevich, captured by Belarusian intelligence services after the forceful landing of the RyanAir aircraft en route from Athens to Vilnius (YouTube, June 3; EDM, May 24). This 96-minute-long interview was extracted from four-and-a-half-hour of footage.... MORE

On April 12, amid escalating tensions along the Ukrainian border, Ukrainian Defense Minister Andriy Taran expressed concern that “Crimea’s infrastructure is being prepared for potentially storing nuclear weapons” (Radio Svoboda, April 14). Even though Taran did not supply evidence for this claim, it is plausible... MORE

On May 28, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka paid a visit to Sochi, where he met with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin (see EDM, June 1). Nothing groundbreaking was announced in the wake of their meeting; but Lukashenka ostensibly succeeded in selling Putin on his version of... MORE

The Russian military buildup along the Ukrainian border in March–May 2021 was another reminder of Ukraine’s urgent need to reform its defense and security sector. And yet, despite the continued tense situation in the region, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy failed to mention anything about the country’s... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. Along with United States President Joseph Biden greenlighting Gazprom’s Nord Stream Two project, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken giving Ukraine’s concerns the short shrift preparatory to Biden’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin (see Part One in... MORE

The atmosphere at the Friday (May 28) evening meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian counterpart, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, was strikingly businesslike considering the intensity of Western condemnations of the act of “air piracy” five days prior. It was up to Putin, who played... MORE

Within the last three weeks, a series of decisions by leading Western powers seem to indicate a downgrading of Ukraine on the scale of Western policy priorities. Taken partly in deference to Russia, these decisions risk demotivating Ukrainian reform efforts (hesitant though these are) and... MORE

A couple of decades ago, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka was branded in Brussels as “Europe’s last dictator.” At that time, Russia’s strongman, President Vladimir Putin, was cultivating a close partnership with his United States counterpart, George W. Bush, and publicly talked about cooperating with the... MORE

Over the past couple months, Russia and the West (the European Union and the United States) have mutually expelled more than 150 diplomats—high numbers in quick succession that, some observers argue, “did not even happen during the Cold War” (Newsru.com, April 24). And those numbers... MORE

For Ukraine, which lost more than 70 percent of its naval assets after Russia’s forcible annexation of Crimea, the ability to effectively deter and adequately respond to further aggressive Russian actions at sea is extremely important. The crucial nature of properly addressing this threat was... MORE