At a joint conference with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, Maia Panjikidze, the foreign ministers of Germany and France, Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Laurent Fabius, respectively, stated that the European Union was prepared to sign the Association Agreement with Georgia as early as this... MORE

Russia is inadvertently helping Ukraine, the United States and the European Union to escape the trap of the April 17 Geneva Joint Diplomatic Statement “On the Situation in Ukraine” (https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2014/04/224957.htm). The quadripartite statement was, in fact, dead on arrival in Geneva, as Russian President Vladimir... MORE

In a move that both exacerbates international conflicts in the Western Pacific and suggests how Moscow plans to proceed in the Arctic, Russian President Vladimir Putin has closed to all outside shipping and fishing the entire Sea of Okhotsk—some 52,000 square kilometers of water that... MORE

Nationalist-leaning Russian experts are expressing concern over the situation in the North Caucasus, demanding that Moscow use more force there. Against the backdrop of Russia’s aggressive moves in Ukraine, some Russian analysts wonder if the Kremlin will ever be as resolute in defending Russia’s interests... MORE

The week following Easter (April 20) saw some signs of restraint in the behavior of the key parties to the Ukrainian catastrophe, but each of the last ten days has further undermined hopes the crisis could be managed. The unexpected Geneva deal of April 17... MORE

A quick glimpse could lead one to conclude that Georgian-Russian relations are truly improving. After an April 16 meeting in Prague, Czech Republic, Zurab Abashidze, the Georgian prime minister’s special representative for relations with Moscow, and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin both sounded highly... MORE

On April 11, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev appointed Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin as chairman of the Russian part of the inter-governmental commission on economic cooperation with Azerbaijan. The news arrived as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security... MORE

According to the March 2014 national survey by the Independent Institute for Socio-Economic and Political Studies (IISEPS), the most reputable Belarusian polling firm funded by the West and registered in Lithuania, the electoral rating of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has climbed five percentage points since December... MORE

Mustafa Cemilev, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and leader of the Crimean Tatar movement, says that Kyiv will seek membership in the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC—formerly called the Organization of the Islamic Conference), a move that could help Ukraine rally support in the... MORE

The agreement to de-escalate the Ukraine crisis, signed at a meeting last week in Geneva by top foreign policy executives of Russia, the United States, the European Union and Ukraine, failed to decrease tensions and prevent further escalation (see EDM, April 17). The armed pro-Russian... MORE