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

The National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) issued a statement, on November 27, complaining of pressure by businessman Ihor Kolomoysky and urging support from the mass media and the international community. Kolomoysky is a Forbes-listed billionaire and a former co-owner of Ukraine’s largest bank, Privatbank, which... MORE

Bringing Down the West: Kémi Séba and the Pan-Africanist Revolution Andrew McGregor An unforeseen consequence of Western intervention against African terrorist groups has been the revitalization of pan-Africanism, an ideology that maintains indigenous and diaspora Africans share a common history and destiny as a unified... MORE

An espionage scandal has erupted in Serbia over the possible recruitment of a senior Serbian official by Russian special services. A video posted online by someone using the YouTube handle “Kdjuey Lskduf” shows two men meeting in a parking lot, with one of them handing... MORE

On November 7, at 3:30 A.M., a westbound train from Xi’an, China, for the first time ever used Istanbul’s $4 billion Marmaray sub-Bosporus railway tunnel to dispatch goods to central Europe (Haber.sol.org.tr, November 7). The train’s voyage represents another of China’s attempts to shave time... MORE

Belarus held parliamentary elections on November 17, resulting in a near-complete turnover of the legislature. Only 30 lawmakers from the previous convocation have retained their seats. The official turnout was recorded at 77.2 percent, with the lowest turnout registered in the capital city of Minsk—63... MORE