Latest Articles about Europe

TAP Project Surging Ahead of Rival Nabucco-West (Part One)

Among the roles of Gazprom’s South Stream pipeline project was that of aborting the EU-backed Nabucco, merely by threatening to preempt Nabucco’s markets along the same route downstream. Conversely, Nabucco’s European rival Trans-Adriatic Pipeline project (TAP) can abort Nabucco by preempting the gas supply source... MORE

Dmytro Firtash Launches New Opaque Gas Intermediary

For 20 out of the 22 years of Ukraine’s independence (with the exception of the period 2009–2010), the country’s domestic energy market has been dominated by opaque gas intermediaries. Gazprom’s Itera and Yulia Tymoshenko’s United Energy Systems of Ukraine operated during the first decade of... MORE

The Cyprus Test for Russian Foreign and Economic Policies

The Cyprus issue has dominated political debates and intrigues in Moscow through last week, turning into a test of sorts for Russia’s ability to respond to acute external challenges. The financial disaster on the island that has become so intimately familiar to many Russians has... MORE

Belarus Continues Its Drift Toward Russia while Moving up in Human Development Rank

On March 17, accompanied by an 80-member delegation, including many directors of state-run companies, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka left for a seven-day visit to Indonesia and Singapore (https://www.svaboda.org/content/article/24931615.html). On March 18, he reported signing export contracts worth $400 million in Jakarta (https://www.gazetaby.com/cont/art.php?sn_nid=54868). Two days prior... MORE

Another ‘Damn Thing in the Balkans’—the Russian Cossacks Come to Comrat

The appearance of a detachment of Russian Cossacks in Moldova’s Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia has not only unsettled some residents there but also spotlights Moscow’s efforts to use the Christian Turkic Gagauz people—alongside Transnistria—against the Moldovan government in Chisinau. The Cossacks’ presence incites a... MORE

Murder and Selective Use of Justice in Ukraine (Part Two)

One month ago (February 14), Kyiv’s Pechersky District Court launched investigatory proceedings into the 1996 murder of then Ukraine’s wealthiest oligarch, Yevhen Shcherban. Yet, as investigative journalist Tetyana Chornovil has pointed out, the murder of Shcherban cannot be separated from political-economic-criminal conditions in Donetsk from... MORE