Section: Atlantic Council (USA)
Putin’s Crimea Is No Vacation
Two years ago on March 16, Crimeans voted in a sham referendum for Russia to annex Crimea. Has life improved for the approximately two million people who live there? Not at all. On every measure, from the economy to its treatment of minorities, the beautiful peninsula has become a shell of what it once was.The economic situation in Crimea is...
Six Ways the US Can Defeat Putin and Bolster Ukraine
The transatlantic community has a significant stake in assuring Ukraine’s trajectory as a modern, democratic, and prosperous European state. A strategy to assist Ukraine in accomplishing that objective must impose greater economic and geopolitical costs on Russia for its aggression, enhance Ukraine’s capacity for self-defense, assist...
Tyrannical Tendencies: Ukraine’s New January 16th Law
On February 16, the same day it almost approved no confidence in the government, Ukraine’s parliament successfully passed law #3700 on its eighteenth attempt. While the law was overshadowed by the controversy over the vote on the government, the legislation is the equivalent of a new “January 16th law” for Ukrainian politicians.What is a...
What Nadiya Savchenko’s Example Can Teach the West
March 5 marked the sixty-third anniversary of Joseph Stalin’s death. A friend texted me a photo of a poster from a Moscow bus shelter, a death mask of the Soviet dictator, captioned with the words: “That one died, this one will, too,” presumably a reference to Russia’s current ruler Vladimir Putin. There’s a certain...
Will Ukraine’s Intrepid Female Pilot be Swapped for Russian Officers Held by Ukraine?
“Freedom does not have a price! I don’t believe anyone in Russia! I’m not afraid and I will not beg!” These may be the last words that Nadiya Savchenko, Ukraine’s most famous political prisoner held by Russia, will speak. On March 3, the day her trial was scheduled to end and she was denied an opportunity to make a closing...
The Church That Stalin Couldn’t Kill: Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Thrives Seventy Years after Forced Reunification
Seventy years ago, on March 8-10, 1946, under orders from Josef Stalin, an illegal “synod” of Kremlin-controlled clergy gathered in the city of Lviv, recently absorbed into the Soviet Union as part of the settlement of World War II. The purpose of the gathering was to liquidate the independent existence of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, or...
Russia Declares War on Crimean Tatars
Two years after invading and annexing Crimea, Russia appears ready to outlaw the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, the representative body of the largest indigenous people of the peninsula. The behavior which Russia deems “extremist” is essentially the Mejlis’ implacable, but always peaceful, opposition to Russia’s occupation.It is unclear...
Mother of Hunger-Striking Pilot Calls for Justice
Editor’s Note: Ukrainian fighter pilot Nadiya Savchenko started a “dry” hunger strike on March 3 after Russian prosecutors requested a 23-year sentence for Savchenko. In 2014, Savchenko was captured by the pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas, transferred to Russia, where she was accused of involvement in the death of two Russian...
“You Have Not Defeated Me and You Never Will!” Ukrainian Fighter Pilot Nadiya Savchenko Tells Court
Even for Russia, where everyday life can best be described as Kafkaesque, the case of Nadiya Savchenko is outrageous. In 2014, during the war in Ukraine’s Donbas, Savchenko, a Ukrainian military officer captured by the pro-Russian separatists in combat, was transferred to Russia, where she was accused of involvement in the death of two...
Remembering Boris Nemtsov
Boris Nemtsov’s legacy and his final project—exposing the Kremlin’s role in the war in Ukraine—were remembered at an event in Washington to mark the first anniversary of his assassination. “He was a man of great values,” said Paula J. Dobriansky, a Senior Fellow at Harvard University and an Atlantic Council board director. Nemtsov was...
