On December 4, the French newspaper Le Monde published a report arguing that at least 15 Russian spies allegedly belonging to “Unit 29155” of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU) have been using the Haute-Savoie... MORE

On the personal level, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a great impression at the “Normandy” group’s summit in Paris, on December 9. Zelenskyy outshone Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and French President Emmanuel Macron at this highly publicized heads-of-state/government gathering—the first after... MORE

In order to maintain its independence and freedom of action, Belarus has long sought to develop relations with a variety of countries beyond the Russian Federation. In recent years, its efforts to establish and widen economic and even political ties with the European Union and... MORE

The top leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France are meeting in Paris today (December 9), in the “Normandy” format, after a three-year pause at that level. This quadrilateral group oversees the implementation of the Minsk “accords” to settle the “Ukraine crisis” (a euphemism for... MORE

As the December 8 deadline to sign the so-called roadmaps for further Russian-Belarusian integration drew closer, anxiety reached a fever pitch among politicized Belarusians. On Friday, December 6, Prime Ministers Sergei Rumas of Belarus and Dmitry Medvedev of Russia met in Sochi; and the next... MORE

After the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) contentious jubilee summit in London last week (December 3–4) (see EDM, December 2), the fulcrum of European politics has shifted to two different summits, in which President Vladimir Putin was supposed to perform foremost roles. The first one... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. Adding to its vulnerabilities vis-à-vis Moscow, Kyiv’s natural gas transit contract with Gazprom expires on December 31. Ukraine’s law on a “special status” for the Russian-controlled Donetsk-Luhansk expires also on December 31. That law exists only on paper... MORE

High-level political discussions about “the Ukraine crisis” (a diplomatic euphemism for Russia’s aggression against Ukraine) are scheduled to resume on December 9, in Paris, in the “Normandy” format—Russia, France, Germany, Ukraine—after a hiatus of more than three years. The Normandy format has continued to operate... MORE

Since 2014, when Russia invaded Ukraine, Moscow has worked hard to reduce cargo traffic via seaports in the three Baltic States—Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia—to punish them for what the Kremlin sees as their unfriendly policies. Moscow has been doing this by building up its own... MORE

On August 23, 2019, Georgian national and former Chechen rebel commander Zelimkhan Khangoshvili (40) was fired on by an assailant on a bicycle, in a Berlin public park. Khangoshvili died on the spot, shot twice in the head. German police quickly apprehended the suspected killer... MORE