The French ambassador to Estonia, Frederic Billet, has asked the host country to look positively at the French sale of Mistral-class warships to Russia. The ambassador told Estonian media that the warship sale is meant to demonstrate the end of the Cold War with Russia;... MORE

The Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s team is tightening its grip on power. The opposition, still in disarray after Yanukovych’s victory in the presidential elections last February, has offered no resistance. More defectors from the opposition are joining the ruling coalition, some of them lured by... MORE

Russia’s Surgutneftegaz has filed a case in Budapest’s Metropolitan Court, seeking legal registration as a stakeholder in Hungarian MOL, the national oil and gas company. Surgut is asking the court to invalidate MOL’s April 2010 refusal to enter the Russian company’s shares in the Hungarian... MORE

Gazprom’s proposal for German RWE to join Gazprom’s South Stream project, has fallen flat at both the corporate and the political levels in Germany. The proposal clearly aimed to disrupt the European Union-backed Nabucco project, where RWE is a key stakeholder, developing offshore gas in... MORE

On July 5 at the Eurasian Economic Community’s Interstate Council in Astana, Belarus, Russia, and Kazakhstan agreed to form a Customs Union that came into effect the next day. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan may join at some point in the future. The Union between Russia and... MORE

US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton’s, first visit to Ukraine on July 2, left the government satisfied, the opposition puzzled and many questions unanswered. On the one hand, no major statements were made or documents signed. On the other hand, thanks to Clinton’s visit, Ukraine... MORE

On July 1, the Ukrainian parliament voted for a new law on “The Fundamentals of Domestic and Foreign Policy” that dropped the goal of seeking NATO membership. At 8:00 pm on July 1, only 50 deputies from the Stability and Reforms coalition were present and... MORE

International demand for Azeri gas (EDM, July 1) is also rising outside the European Union. It is mostly driven by the anticipation of post-crisis industrial recovery and by considerations of supply security through diversification.Russia’s Gazprom is preparing in its own way for Europe’s post-crisis recovery.... MORE

An international court has obliged Naftohaz Ukrainy, the state-controlled oil and gas behemoth, to pass 12 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas and $192 million to RosUkrEnergo (RUE), a joint venture of Gazprom and the Ukrainian businessman, Dmytro Firtash. This is a heavy defeat for... MORE

Moldova’s governing Alliance for European Integration (AEI) has split yet again, this time over a historical assessment of Soviet rule and Communism in Moldova. On June 28, leaders of three parties, out of the AEI’s four, cancelled literally at the last minute the Parliament’s session... MORE