Section: Atlantic Council (USA)
Exiled Russian Lawmaker Ilya Ponomarev: Current US Sanctions Won’t Work
The United States must expand the scope of its sanctions well beyond Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle if this effort—a response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine—is to have any real impact, says a Russian lawmaker. “The [US] government machine is doing what it can do,...
NATO, EU Need Political Will from Europe to Tackle Challenges
In recent years we have witnessed significant changes in Europe’s eastern and southern neighborhood that have had a profoundly negative impact on our security. The threat from the East, whose nature could be described as traditional or conventional, stems from Russia’s aggressive posture. The illegal annexation of Crimea and the armed...
Things Are Looking Up for Ukraine: Debt Deal Reached
Today Ukraine received great news. Private owners of $19 billion of Ukraine’s Eurobonds have agreed to a substantial debt restructuring that will give Ukraine much-needed relief. The high bond yields have been sharply reduced, the bonds’ maturities have been prolonged, and the face value of the bonds has been reduced by 20...
How the West Can Stop Russia’s Escalating War in Ukraine
This month, Russia stepped up military pressure on Ukraine, concentrating about fifty thousand troops along its border with Ukraine, using its proxy militias to shell Ukrainian government positions in the Donbas, and threatening Kyiv with “a big war.”The current escalation indicates Russian discontent with Ukraine’s refusal to...
Ukraine Has Every Right to Play Hardball With Its Creditors
As Ukraine fights Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas, the government is simultaneously engaged in a battle with its foreign creditors for the debt relief it desperately needs to prevent a full-scale economic collapse. Ukraine owes $32 billion in foreign currency Eurobonds.To stave off disaster, the International Monetary Fund and other...
Ukraine Steps Up Efforts to Recover Stolen Assets Abroad
Two Kyiv-based women—a lawyer who heads a state agency created to reclaim stolen assets abroad and a social activist-turned-politician who’s made a career out of exposing official corruption—spoke August 20 in Washington about their efforts to clean up Ukraine.Olena Tyshchenko is director of the Agency for Asset Recovery at Ukraine’s...
Russia, Not Ukraine, is the Questionable Partner
In its August 12 editorial, “Shaky Ukraine: Economics and Corruption Complicate Its War,” the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette calls Ukraine a “questionable partner” because of “resistance to economic reform and use of Islamist Chechen forces.” Too bad neither charge is true. …read more Source: Atlantic...
The Soviet Playbook in Ukraine
It appears that Russian President Vladimir Putin is losing the war in Ukraine. Gone are the talks about seizing so-called Novorossiya—the strip of land from Kharkiv to Odesa—and establishing a land bridge to occupied Crimea. Even though recent developments suggest a possible offensive to expand the territory Russia and its proxies now hold,...
“We want Ukraine to be a European country, not a Putin country,” Says Ukrainian MP
World attention focuses on ISIS and Iran, with its half an atomic weapon. But the biggest geopolitical issue is Vladimir Putin, backed by thousands of nuclear weapons, who is gradually conquering Ukraine, a democracy with 45 million people the size of Germany and Poland combined.In just over a year, Russia has seized 9 percent of Ukraine, killed...
Ukraine Must Finish Reforming Public Procurement Practices as Part of Anti-Corruption Drive
As Ukraine struggles with a collapsing economy and Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas, a third crisis threatens its long-term national stability: endemic corruption.Ukraine ranks 142nd out of 175 countries on Transparency International’s latest annual Corruption Perceptions Index. Of the fifteen former Soviet republics, only...
