Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has made it clear that he holds Davyd Zhvania, the sponsor of the populist People’s Self-Defense bloc (NS), responsible for his mysterious poisoning at the height of the presidential election race in 2004—Zhvania denies this. Zhvania also insists that Yushchenko’s was... MORE

The issue of Cyprus and its reunification has bedeviled Turkish-Greek relations since 1974 and cast a persistent pall over Turkish efforts to join the European Union, especially since the Republic of Cyprus joined the EU on May 1, 2004. Now the Mediterranean’s third-largest island—after this... MORE

Come January 2009 Ukraine will, in all likelihood, begin paying Russia’s Gazprom in the range of $400 per 1,000 cubic meters for natural gas or $22 billion per year. Presently the country pays $179 per 1,000 cubic meters, or $9.9 billion per year. Will it... MORE

On July 12 Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko’s fourth party of power United Center held its inaugural congress in pompous style at the Ukrayina Palace, broadcast live on state television Channel 1. Although presidential secretariat head Viktor Baloga was touted by the Ukrainian media as the... MORE

The seizure in eastern Turkey on July 8 of three German mountaineers by a unit of the People’s Defense Force (HPG), the armed wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), was the first time in more than a decade that the organization had kidnapped Western... MORE

On the evening of July 24, 2008, Russian State Duma member Konstantin Zatulin was banned from entering Ukraine for one year when he arrived in Simferopol airport in the Crimea with a group of Russian parliamentarians to take part in the commemoration of the 1,020th... MORE

Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has refused to approve using the Odesaa-Brody pipeline for pumping Caspian oil to the Pryvat Group’s refineries. The pipeline, Odessa-Brody, is currently used by Russian oil companies in the reverse direction, Brody-Odessa. President Viktor Yushchenko’s team is accusing Tymoshenko of... MORE

At 12:30 A.M. on July 4, when thousands of Minsk residents were attending a concert to commemorate the official Independence Day (July 3) near the monument to the "Hero City," a bomb exploded injuring 54 people. President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who designated July 3 as the... MORE

The European Union’s Nabucco pipeline project for transporting Caspian gas to Europe continues to experience false starts and outright setbacks. The impasse seems to justify the Hungarian proposal to hold a summit of the Nabucco consortium countries and the relevant gas producer countries, with the... MORE