Latest Articles about Foreign Policy
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Kyiv Raising the Level, Accelerating the Pace of the Minsk Process (Part Two)
*To read Part One, please click here. Kyiv has raised its delegation to the Minsk Contact Group from a semi-official level to a full-fledged, senior-level governmental and parliamentary delegation. Kyiv hopes that Moscow will reciprocate in order to accelerate the negotiations and do so,... MORE
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Three Controversial Articles by Top Officials Distort Russia’s Past, Present and Future
Russian authorities rarely resort to such old-fashioned means of communication as written articles. Yet, last week, three key figures in the top leadership—President Vladimir Putin, Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, and former prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, who now holds the newly established position of deputy... MORE
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Kyiv Raising the Level, Accelerating the Pace of the Minsk Process (Part One)
Kyiv is adding Ukrainian citizens from the Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine’s east as members of Kyiv’s delegation to the Minsk Contact Group (see EDM, June 15, 17). But this is only one aspect of the delegation’s thorough overhaul. At the same time, Kyiv has turned... MORE
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Russian Military Seeking to Counter Growing Chinese Role in Central Asia
In March 2019, Dmitry Zhelobov, a specialist on China at Russia’s Urals Federal University, warned that Beijing was shifting from relying on soft power in Central Asia to using hard power. If Russia did not take this threat seriously, he added, China might have its... MORE
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Moscow Defiant on Sentencing of US Citizen on Trumped-up Espionage Charges
Paul Whelan (50)—a Canadian-born United States resident, Marine Corps veteran (discharged for bad conduct) and director of a security firm—was arrested in Moscow, in December 2018, by the Federal Security Service’s (FSB) counter-intelligence arm and charged with espionage. Whelan was incarcerated in the notorious FSB... MORE
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Romania’s New National Defense Strategy Irks Kremlin (Part One)
Romania’s new national defense strategy for 2020–2024 has just entered parliamentary debate and is already generating international controversy. The 46-page document (Hotnews.ro, June 4) has drawn Moscow’s ire because it defines the Russian Federation as a “threat” in the Black Sea region and indirectly accuses the... MORE
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Ukraine Designates Legitimate Representatives of Donetsk and Luhansk in the Minsk Process (Part Two)
*To read Part One, please click here. Pro-Ukraine personalities, forcibly displaced from the Russian-occupied Donetsk and Luhansk, participated in the Minsk Contact Group’s extended video-conference session on June 9–15, as invited members of Ukraine’s delegation. This innovative arrangement looks set to continue for the... MORE
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Is Belarus’s Presidential Campaign Running Aground?
The electoral campaign in Belarus is developing like the plot of a mystery novel. Two obstacles seem to stand in the way of its impartial description: the sheer number of new developments and groupthink. The former makes it difficult to see the forest for the... MORE
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Changes in the Separatist Abkhazian Government and Implications for Relations With Tbilisi
At a June 2 meeting with members of the “parliament” of Abkhazia, the secessionist Georgian region’s newly elected “president,” Aslan Bzhania, reported that, during his first visit to Moscow (May 5) (Ekho Kavkaza, May 5), he had secured additional Russian funds to fill local budgetary... MORE
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The Paradox of Russia’s Disinformation Activities in Italy
As the novel coronavirus crisis unfolded in Italy, several countries came to the rescue, and among them, Russia played a crucial role (see EDM, April 8). Italian authorities acknowledged and praised these efforts. Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio personally welcomed Russian cargo planes when they... MORE