On November 20, Russian-occupied South Ossetia’s (Tskhinvali region) separatist regime declared that it is negotiating a new “comprehensive agreement on integration” with Russia, which will raise the relationship between the two sides to a “qualitatively new level,” especially in the military sphere (regnum.ru, November 20).... MORE

Last weekend (November 21), Ukraine marked the first anniversary of the EuroMaidan—the public protests in Kyiv that lasted through the hard winter of discontent and brought down the corrupt regime of Viktor Yanukovych on February 21. As its war for state survival continues to rage,... MORE

Tensions between Russia and the United States, deepened by the Ukraine crisis, have now affected nuclear security cooperation—an area that had previously resisted the fallout from earlier disputes over ballistic missile defense, Georgia and other issues. At the beginning of November 2014, media leaks revealed... MORE

Three inter-related themes engage attention in the Belarusian and international media: the ambivalent image of Belarus, its upcoming presidential elections, and the Belarusian economy. The economy appears to be the linchpin of this triad. It informs Belarus’s image, if only to some extent. But although... MORE

In a transcript of a TV interview to German journalists published by the Kremlin this week, President Vladimir Putin declared: “There is war in the East of Ukraine. The Ukrainian government is using its army and even ballistic missiles. You [the West] are silent. Do... MORE

At the recently completed Fourth Plenum of the 18th Party Congress, Chinese leaders directed efforts to reform existing international institutions and laws and promote alternative values, political principles and legal arguments that better accord with China’s needs. These directions reflect a broader, whole-of-government effort to... MORE

In recent years, Russia has been clearly trying to expand its foreign policy reach in Latin America (see EDM, May 2, July 22). This was especially evident during President Vladimir Putin’s grand July 2014 tour of the region on the heels of the BRICS (loose... MORE

G20 heads of state and government held their regular summit on November 15–16, in Brisbane, Australia. Within that large group, Western summiteers devoted much of their time to discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin about Ukraine. This was a follow-up to the same Western leaders’... MORE

The G20 summit in Brisbane, Australia, was the last event in President Vladimir Putin’s lengthy Eastern tour that started on November 9, with a visit to China prior to the Asia-Pacific Economic Community (APEC) summit in Beijing. His only contribution to the discussions of the... MORE

TO READ PART ONE, CLICK HERE. Russian diplomacy has created its own terminology, complete with fine semantic nuances, to disguise the nature of Russia’s conflict undertaking in Ukraine and promote an incremental legitimization of Russia’s proxies there. Misleading terms such as “the Ukraine conflict,” “crisis in... MORE