The leader of the “Donetsk People’s Republic” (DPR), Aleksandr Zakharchenko, was assassinated by a bomb blast on August 31, after almost four years of continuous service to the Russian occupation in three capacities simultaneously: “head of the republic” (“glava respubliki”), head of the “council of... MORE

In late August, the Ukrainian magazine Tizhden published excerpts from a book by the former president of France, François Hollande, Les Leçons de Pouvoir (The Lessons of Power). The passages touch upon Hollande’s impressions of the night of February 11/12, 2015, which he spent in... MORE

Ukraine’s Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan has been stepping up his insistence that train and bus routes to Russia should be canceled. Such a decision would need to be approved by President Petro Poroshenko. Omelyan’s recommendation is driven by security concerns: Kyiv alleges that visitors from... MORE

Because interpreting news from Belarus has been challenging for outsiders, some verifiable background information about the country may prove useful. For example, for the eighth straight year, the former “last dictatorship of Europe” leads the world in the number of Schengen visas allotted per 1,000... MORE

Following the demise of the Islamic State (IS) territorially, authorities across Europe are grappling with serious questions regarding the return of foreign IS fighters. Countries have followed a variety of paths in dealing with returnees.  These include judicial proceedings and jail time for those arrested,... MORE

The war in Ukraine’s east was the topic that Merkel placed at the top of her remarks at the August 18 Berlin-Meseberg meeting with Putin (see Part One). Putin relegated this topic to the end of his remarks, as if to confirm Russia’s current tactic... MORE

German Chancellor Angela Merkel uncharacteristically interrupted her summer vacation to receive Russian President Vladimir Putin on August 18, 2018, at Meseberg Castle, near Berlin. It was the second Merkel-Putin meeting within three months. Their meeting in Sochi last May triggered a flurry of bilateral German-Russian... MORE

Sergei Skripal (66), a former Russian military intelligence (GRU) colonel, was arrested in Moscow in 2004 for allegedly being an agent of the United Kingdom’s MI6 intelligence service. In 2010, Skripal was pardoned, released and sent to the UK in a major spy exchange involving... MORE

Air defense is crucial for the security of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) eastern flank. Yet, despite an ambitious modernization drive, spurned on one hand by a mounting Russian threat and on the other by aging and obsolescent capabilities, NATO member Romania finds itself... MORE

The standoff between Moldova’s ruling Democratic Party and the country’s pro-European opposition escalated following the cancelation of a democratic election for Chisinau mayor, won by the opposition, earlier this summer (see EDM, June 27). On the dawn of Moldovan Independence Day, on August 27, after... MORE