The meaning of Russia Day, the holiday celebrated last Friday, June 12, remains obscure and even foreign for the majority of Russians. Overall, the population has mixed feelings about the collapse of the Soviet Union, which was precipitated by the declaration of state sovereignty of... MORE

To read Part One, please click here.To read Part Two, please click here. President Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s policy is one of benevolent neutrality sympathetic toward Ukraine in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. Belarus’s diplomacy and its trade policies tilt in Ukraine’s favor to the extent possible without... MORE

Belgium has in recent years produced some of the largest numbers of foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq, both in absolute and relative terms of any European country. This article aims to take a critical look at the numbers of Belgian fighters active with the... MORE

Pressed by economic and geopolitical imperatives, Italy is trying to carve out its own diplomatic space over the crisis in Ukraine, in an apparent attempt at fostering a rapprochement between the European Union and Russia. The Russian annexation of the Ukrainian autonomous region of Crimea... MORE

Russia’s March 17, 2014, annexation of Crimea plunged Russian-Western relations to their lowest level since the Cold War. Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) subsequently imposed sanctions on Russia over its actions toward Ukraine. Notably, a pair of Mistral-class helicopter assault ships being... MORE

On February 17, three British teenagers left their East London homes and boarded a plane for Turkey. Soon afterwards, they crossed into Syria, where they are believed to have joined the Islamic State militant group (al-Jazeera, February 21). This event has put female radicalization in... MORE

On March 4–5, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi visited Kyiv and Moscow during a diplomatic trip aimed at enhancing Italy’s role as meditator in the Ukraine conflict. Renzi paid a visit to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, before travelling to Moscow to meet Vladimir Putin and... MORE

The foreign affairs ministers of Russia, Germany, France, and Ukraine—the “Normandy Four” countries—met on February 24, in Paris, to review the situation in Ukraine’s east. Russian and proxy forces had captured Ukraine’s Debaltseve area on February 18, breaching the armistice signed at the “Normandy Four”... MORE

BELGIUM: TRIAL UNCOVERS EUROPE’S FORGOTTEN JIHADISTS James Brandon One of Europe’s largest ever Islamism-related anti-terrorism trials concluded on February 11 with the conviction of Fouad Belkacem, the leader of Sharia4Belgium, along with a number of the group’s followers (RTBF, February 12) .The court found that... MORE

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her French counterpart, Francois Hollande, have been leading intense diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the crisis Ukraine. Yet, as Russian media reported, the Merkel-Hollande summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 6, in Moscow, following their trip to meet President... MORE