At a press conference in the National Library of Belarus for central and regional media, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka denied that his country is in crisis. He defined the latter as a time when enterprises cease production, or else they lack raw materials, they cannot... MORE

Kyiv’s recent attempt to persuade Moscow to lower the price of gas for Ukraine proved to be a fiasco. Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, made it clear to his visiting Ukrainian counterpart Mykola Azarov on June 7 that Moscow was happy with the current situation... MORE

Russian officials from President Dmitry Medvedev and down have recently subjected the US and NATO to a typical diplomatic offensive against missile defenses in Europe. In this offensive Russian spokesmen have reiterated their undying belief that missile defenses threaten Russian nuclear weapons, strategic stability, the... MORE

On June 8 in Kayseri (Turkey), Nabucco project companies from the five transit countries –Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Austria– signed with those countries’ corresponding ministries the Project Support Agreements (PSAs) for the construction of the Nabucco pipeline. The five companies plus RWE of Germany... MORE

There has been a remarkable variety of engagements with the West for Russia last week, and it has achieved exactly what it wanted to achieve – nothing. Moscow played rounds of gas diplomacy with Ukraine and missile defense diplomacy with NATO, sanctions diplomacy in the... MORE

On June 7 in Moscow, Prime Ministers Vladimir Putin and Nikolai Azarov held tense negotiations on the terms of Russian gas supplies to Ukraine. The government in Kyiv and its Donetsk-based industrial interests are seeking a second round of gas price-cutting, after that agreed in... MORE

Ukrainian Prime Minister, Mykola Azarov, looks set to sacrifice the economy for electoral considerations. Azarov is reluctant to meet the key conditions set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to qualify for the continuation of its $15 billion assistance program: domestic gas price hikes and... MORE

This week in Brussels, during a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council (NRC), Russian Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov discussed with his Western counterparts the seemingly intractable problem of Moscow’s opposition to US-NATO plans for ballistic missile defense (BMD) in Europe.  Serdyukov stated there was no progress:... MORE

Belarusian President, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, is a man under pressure. Assailed by Western powers for his harsh treatment of former presidential candidates and protestors, he also faces mounting economic problems that have led to the devaluation of the national currency. At the same time, high rates... MORE

Moscow and Berlin converge in asking Chisinau to give up the 2005 law on Transnistria conflict-resolution principles, renounce the unitary character of the state, and (backstage) to move toward federalizing Moldova (EDM, June 6, 8). Chisinau may well face such demands on June 21 in... MORE