The Kremlin-connected oil company Surgut Neftegaz has surreptitiously bought Austrian OMV's entire 21.2 percent stake in Hungary's MOL Oil and Gas Company. European Union authorities, the privately owned MOL, and Hungary are aghast at Surgut's move and OMV's collusion with it. Budapest and Brussels were... MORE

Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin has pulled back at the last moment from the brink of a separate deal to put Russia in the driving seat of negotiations on Transnistria. The March 18 joint declaration by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Voronin, and Transnistria leader Igor Smirnov... MORE

The joint declaration by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin, and Transnistria leader Igor Smirnov, signed in Moscow on March 18 (EDM, March 20, 25, 26), is serving Smirnov well as a negotiation-breaker. Citing points in that declaration, Smirnov is now calling openly... MORE

The Ukrainian - EU agreement on renovating the main Ukrainian gas trunk pipeline signed in Brussels on March 23 was greeted with a virulent reaction from Moscow. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who runs his countries gas sector with an iron fist, threatened to "review"... MORE

Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin's signature on the March 18 Moscow declaration, with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Transnistria's leader Igor Smirnov (Interfax, Russian MFA website, March 18, 19; EDM, March 20, 25), amounts to a surrender in the final days of Voronin's presidency. This political... MORE

As negotiations continue between the EU and Belarus with the prospect of the latter joining the Eastern Partnership, the Belarusian opposition has formulated its own conditions for any future agreement. In turn, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has branded his opponents a "fifth column" and seeks to... MORE

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's March 18 meeting with Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin and Transnistria leader Igor Smirnov (EDM, March 20) was designed to mark a qualitatively new stage in the long-running negotiations on the Transnistria conflict. While continuing to block the conflict resolution negotiations, Russia... MORE

Recent opinion polls and a local election on March 16 have shown that two stars are rising in Ukrainian politics. The time remaining until the January 2010 presidential election should show whether the two, far-right Oleg Tyahnybok and liberal economist Arseny Yatsenyuk, will prove viable... MORE

Russian energy companies have intensified their efforts to boost their presence in Central Europe, giving cause for concern that Moscow plans to continue using energy as a foreign policy tool to tighten its grip over the region. Just prior to the last energy crisis in... MORE

Moldova's Social-Democrat Party is being led by the tandem of former Prime Minister Dumitru Braghis (1999-2001) and young businessman-politician Eduard Musuc in these elections. The party targets both Moldovan and "Russian-speaking" voters. Accordingly, it promises to seek an association agreement with the EU, a strategic... MORE