A flurry of publications and public statements comparing and contrasting Belarus and Ukraine (see EDM, February 18) continues. On February 23, Belarus celebrated the Day of the Homeland’s Defender, a national holiday inherited from the Soviet Union. In his holiday speech, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka stated... MORE

An unexpected breakthrough emerged in the stalled investigations of several mysterious international murders of Chechens with ties to the Caucasus Emirate in 2008–2012. The news concerns a person who simultaneously worked for the security services of several countries—Russia, Georgia and Turkey.  A kind of James... MORE

The sudden meltdown of President Viktor Yanukovych’s regime in Kyiv last week has surprised the Kremlin. On Wednesday February 19, during the height of the bloodbath in Kyiv, when dozens of people were shot dead and hundreds wounded, the Kremlin-financed news website Vzglad was calling... MORE

On February 25, Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada (national parliament) chairman and acting head of state, Oleksandr Turchynov, appointed Oleh Makhnitsky as acting general prosecutor, with instructions to “rebuff separatist tendencies” in parts of south-eastern Ukraine and Crimea. According to Turchynov as he introduced the appointment, separatists... MORE

Ukraine has embarked on regime transition. The interim leadership now confronts an entirely new mix of challenges to national and civil security, of greater complexity and intensity than anything in the country’s experience since 1991. Thousands of participants in the recent protest movement are still... MORE

Turning Ukraine into a federation of regional units is an idea that Moscow airs almost predictably, when facing a net loss of Russian influence over Ukraine. “Federalizing” Ukraine traditionally connotes, from Moscow’s perspective, undermining the authority of the central government in Kyiv in relation to... MORE

On February 3, Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans made his first official visit to Kazakhstan. In Astana, he met with President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Speaker of the Senate of Parliament Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Deputy Prime Minister Bakhytzhan Sagintayev, Foreign Minister Erlan Idrisov and other senior Kazakhstani officials... MORE

The long telephone conversation between United States President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin in the earliest hours of last Saturday was remarkable in its surrealistic detachment from the real events in Ukraine, which were the main topic of the exchange. Obama sought to... MORE

Russia’s economic leverage on Moldova has tended to diminish in recent years, but it remains strong on several key dimensions, and can be used with short-term devastating consequences, if the Kremlin decides to use this leverage punitively. The European Union and the Moldovan government worry... MORE

The Ukrainian authorities and the mainstream opposition leaders signed a deal today (February 21) in Kyiv to settle the political crisis continuing since November. They agreed to undertake constitutional reform, form a coalition government, conduct early presidential elections by December and, most importantly, put an... MORE