Latest from OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to Ukraine based on information received as of 18:00 (Kyiv time), 17 November 2014
This report is for media and the general public. The SMM continued to focus its observation on the implementation of the provisions of the Minsk Protocol and Memorandum. In Donetsk the SMM observed an armoured truck carrying an antiaircraft machine. On 16 November the SMM met the commander of the irregular armed group of the Cossack-controlled...
Weak Ruble Exchange Rate Represents Political Bargaining Challenge
The financial troubles of the ruble represent the most striking and dangerous strategic challenge facing the Russian state since the conflict in Ukraine began. …read more Source: Carnegie Endowment for International...
OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier and Austrian Defence Minister Klug visit training site of OSCE SMM Monitors
Vienna, 17 November 2014 – OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier and Austrian Defence Minister Gerald Klug will visit the Austrian armed forces Foreign Mission Base in Goetzendorf on Friday 21 November, to meet internationally recruited monitors who are receiving training before joining the Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM)....
Russia-West Rhetoric Ratchets Up, Georgian Convicted of Mid-2000s Mutiny
Plus, the golden arches will rise in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan’s leader says his country must be a partner for Russia. …read more Source: Transitions Online...
Ukraine’s Sleeping Beauty
Kharkiv seemed to go to sleep in the 1970s and has yet to awaken. When it finally does, what will it become? …read more Source: Transitions Online...
Only sanctions against Gazprom will significantly affect the Russian economy
Restrictive measures of the U.S. and the EU will become a real threat to the Russian economy only when sanctions against Gazprom are imposed. This opinion was expressed by Co-director of Foreign Relations and International Security Programmes of the Razumkov Centre Oleksiy Melnyk, informs the news agency TSN. The expert also noted that the next...
‘Nothing is True and Everything is Possible’
A new book presents a Russia with no rules and no certainty in tomorrow. From openDemocracy. …read more Source: Transitions Online...
Frozen Donbas?
Ukraine is in the process of forming a new government. President Putin has a say in the development of this process by threatening an invasion. And now he can be almost certain that the West will not go to war with Russia over Ukraine. …read more Source: Carnegie Endowment for International...
Spot report by OSCE Observer Mission, 16 Nov 2014: Russian convoy of 20 vehicles crossed into Ukraine and returned via Donetsk Border Crossing Point
SUMMARY On 16 November 2014 at 07:25 (Moscow time), a Russian convoy arrived at the Russian Donetsk Border Crossing Point (BCP). A total of 20 vehicles were inspected by the Russian border guard and customs services and then headed into Ukraine. All the vehicles crossed back into the Russian Federation (RF) at 15:12 on the same day. This was the...
Russia, Ukraine, and the Visegrad: Time to Get Real
The crisis in Ukraine has betrayed fault lines in the Visegrad Group. Unless Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic change course, the “golden age” of Central Europe may come to an end. …read more Source: Carnegie Endowment for International...
