Thirteen months into his tenure, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen travelled to Georgia, the number one troop-contributing country on a per capita basis to NATO’s mission in Afghanistan. Rasmussen’s October 1 visit coincided with the death of four Georgians (a colonel and three NCOs) in... MORE

Moscow is exploiting a number of Polish vulnerabilities of both the objective and the subjective variety, all short-term, in the negotiations on a new supply agreement. The proposed draft would perpetuate those vulnerabilities, and cause Polish long-term dependence on Gazprom. For the time being, Poland... MORE

In the last couple of years, Russia has engaged in a rapprochement policy with Poland preceding the death of Poland’s President, Lech Kaczynski and many leading members of the government in a fatal air crash on April 10, outside Smolensk,. However, this policy certainly received... MORE

Poland consumes some 14.5 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas annually (unaffected by the economic recession elsewhere). The country produces some 4.3 bcm per year internally while importing the remainder from Gazprom (Bloomberg, September 18). Most of Gazprom’s deliveries enter Poland through the Yamal-Europe pipeline,... MORE

Moscow has apparently chosen Poland as a ground for testing the European Union’s common energy policy. In ongoing negotiations for a new supply agreement, Gazprom seeks to pressure Poland to circumvent or breach the EU’s legislation on energy market liberalization (Third Energy Package, 2009). Russia... MORE

Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych, used his September 22-24 second visit to the US as president to clarify his views and intentions towards the West. Many in the US and Western Europe have been concerned by the nature of Kyiv’s relations with Moscow under Yanukovych, especially... MORE

The withdrawal of the last combat units of the U.S. army from Iraq at the end of August attracted reactions from various Iraqi insurgent groups. On September 1 the number of U.S. troops in Iraq dropped to less than 50,000 personnel. The U.S. army announced... MORE

The Kazakh-Russian joint working group will soon present a proposal for the construction of the “Eurasia” canal linking the Caspian and Azov seas (www.izvestia.ru, September 28). From expanded trade and transit across Eurasia to new energy projects and maritime access for landlocked Central Asia, the... MORE

Having received unequivocal backing from voters in the constitutional referendum, the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) has moved to address Turkey’s structural problems, most notably the Kurdish question, through a combination of domestic measures, as well as regional and international diplomacy. The resolution of... MORE

On September 19, 23 soldiers were killed and 15 wounded as a convoy of military vehicles passing through the increasingly volatile Rasht valley in eastern Tajikistan was ambushed by “heavily armed gunmen.” Another eight soldiers died later of the wounds they sustained in the assault... MORE