Russian Gazprom was poised to take over Greece’s Public Gas Corporation (DEPA), but has withdrawn from the tender literally on the last possible day. The final, binding offer was due to be submitted on June 10, but it did not arrive. Instead, Gazprom claims that... MORE

Croatia is set to join the European Union as a full member on July 1. This makes Croatia a more attractive object of Russian energy interests. The head of Zarubezhneft (Nikolai Brunich, who has in the meantime taken over as chief of Transneft) visited Zagreb... MORE

When writing about xenophobia and racism, Western scholarly and media writing about Ukraine inevitably focuses on Western Ukraine and the rise of the Svoboda nationalist party. But in fact, Council of Europe reports, the United States’ diplomatic cables from Kyiv (released by Wikileaks), annual reports... MORE

In his essay, “A Map of the World: The Return of Geopolitics,” Sergei Karaganov, a Russian pundit, analyzes the newly acquired legitimacy of geopolitics that, until recently, used to be “provincial,” “politically incorrect,” and even perceived by some as a vestige of Nazi ideology. Karaganov... MORE

Although lacking a parliamentary majority, the new Socialist-led government of Bulgaria, is hurriedly reversing critical energy sector decisions of the previous center-right government, thus bringing the country closer to Russia. Within two weeks of the cabinet’s appointment, discussions are underway to reopen the Belene Nuclear... MORE

The existential reality of Belarus, squeezed between Russia and the European Union, is its crucial dependency on external geopolitical factors. If anything, the recent slump in Belarus’s exports exacerbates this dependency. In the first quarter of 2013, exports decreased by 20.5 percent compared with the... MORE

On May 29, the presidents of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine met in Astana to participate in a scheduled meeting of the Supreme Economic Council of the Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC), established in 2001. Since Moscow, Minsk and Astana have lately been engaged in... MORE

Following a week of protests over his offensive and defamatory statements about the May 18, 1944 deportation of Crimean Tatars, Vladimir Andreev, the Russian consul general in Simferopol, Crimea, Ukraine, resigned from his post on May 25, 2013. These events were provoked by Andreev’s response... MORE

Pressed by international creditors and its own insolvency, Greece is selling off DEPA/DESFA, the state-controlled natural gas company. While Russian Gazprom looks set to acquire DEPA (Public Gas Corporation, the gas procurement and dominant distribution company), the little-known Russian company Sintez is bidding for DESFA... MORE

Insolvent Greece is auctioning off its state assets, both as a matter of necessity and as a condition imposed by international creditors for bailing out the country. The state-controlled natural gas company, DEPA/DESFA, is by far the most valuable asset in the Greek privatization package.Russian... MORE