Most political commentators agree that the Minsk armistice negotiations over the war in eastern Ukraine have raised Belarus’s international profile (see EDM, February 12). Thus, according to Kirill Koktysh, a Minsk-born professor at the Institute of Foreign Relations in Moscow, the Belarusian government should take... MORE

As the Ukraine crisis deepens and European countries increasingly worry about the possibility of an all-out confrontation with Russia, the Kremlin has begun to make public the basic conditions of an overall political solution that could stabilize and deescalate the standoff. This week (February 25),... MORE

The political and military terms of the Minsk Two agreement (February 12) and capture of Debaltseve by Russia’s proxies breaching the ceasefire (February 18) show the extent of Ukraine’s entrapment into Russia’s conflict stratagems. Russia has set those traps; the existing international system shows no... MORE

In the aftermath of concluding the Minsk Two agreements earlier this month, the strategically important Debaltseve soon fell to the Russia-backed Ukrainian separatists—amidst clear disagreement over whether or not the latest ceasefire applied to the town. During the sixteen-hour talks in Minsk, on February 12,... MORE

Circassian activists and their supporters in Ukraine continue working on a project for recognition of the Circassian “genocide.” On February 13, Dmitro Linko, a member of the Radical Party of Oleg Lyashko, registered the new legislation in the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada. On February... MORE

On February 18–19, Ukraine decided to request the United Nations Security Council to authorize a peacekeeping contingent or police mission that would discourage further advances of Russian and proxy forces in Ukraine’s east (Ukrinform, February 18, 19). Debaltseve fell to Russian and proxy forces on... MORE

During his visit to Ankara in December 2014, Vladimir Putin announced that South Stream—a large pipeline that would have carried Europe-bound Russian gas under the Black Sea and across Southeastern Europe—had been terminated. A major reason for South Stream’s cancellation was attributed to the exit... MORE

*To read Part One please click here *To read Part Two please click here  Unlike the Minsk One ceasefire agreements of September 2014, the Minsk Two agreement of February 12, 2015, goes far beyond a military armistice. It is overloaded with political provisions which, if implemented,... MORE

BELGIUM: TRIAL UNCOVERS EUROPE’S FORGOTTEN JIHADISTS James Brandon One of Europe’s largest ever Islamism-related anti-terrorism trials concluded on February 11 with the conviction of Fouad Belkacem, the leader of Sharia4Belgium, along with a number of the group’s followers (RTBF, February 12) .The court found that... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. The capture of Debaltseve in Ukraine on Wednesday (Interfax, February 18) by Russian and proxy troops, following prolonged bombardment by their heavy missile systems, is not simply a prima facie breach of the February 12, 2015, “Minsk Two”... MORE