Section: Atlantic Council (USA)
The Odesa Gambit
Mikheil Saakashvili has a varied resume: former President of Georgia, Justice Minister, parliamentarian, senior statesman, and Ukrainian presidential adviser. On May 30, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko added another line to his CV. He named Saakaskvili regional Governor of Odesa, a vulnerable and strategic port city on the Black Sea. Despite...
Fighting Putin’s Lies with the Truth
“I can tell you outright and unequivocally that there are no Russian troops in Ukraine,” Russian President Vladimir Putin declared on a live television show April 16. That claim was patently false. To put it bluntly: Mr. Putin was lying through his teeth. The conflict in Ukraine’s east is a Kremlin-manufactured war, begun by Russian...
Mr. Putin’s Lies Hiding in Plain Sight
Reports by Atlantic Council and Boris Nemtsov’s allies reveal extent of Russia’s military aggression in Ukraine Russian President Vladimir Putin is violating a February 2015 ceasefire agreement by continuing to send troops and weapons into Ukraine in a blatant attempt to destabilize the country, according to an Atlantic Council report...
Russia’s Secret Funerals
Sgt. Leonid Kichatkin of the Russian 76th Airborne Division and Russian soldier Anton Tumanov died in August 2014 while fighting in eastern Ukraine. Their deaths amply demonstrate that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim that there are no Russian troops in Ukraine is false. …read more Source: Atlantic...
The Disastrous EU Summit on the European Partnership
The European Union’s Summit on the Eastern Partnership, held May 21-22 in Riga, was a disaster for Ukraine. For friends of democracy, the rule of law, and Ukraine, it would have been better had this EU summit never taken place and its joint declaration never written. …read more Source: Atlantic...
Ukraine Is Still Caught between a Hammer and an Anvil
For most of the 20th century, Ukraine was the victim of two equally malevolent empires—Germany and Russia. Germany’s contribution to Ukraine’s devastation was the two World Wars; Russia’s was the imposition of Soviet rule and the concomitant destruction of Ukraine’s peasantry and elites. Unsurprisingly, one of the most...
Kremlin Lays Hands on Faith in Crimea
In Russia this April, a Baptist pastor was jailed for professing his faith. Pavel Pilipchuk’s five-day detention was brief, but excessive. It followed his refusal to pay a heavy fine for organizing street evangelism in the city of Oryol, around 200 miles south of Moscow. By not informing city officials of his plans, a local court ruled the...
War in Ukraine of Global Significance, Says Archbishop
“To those from outside, [the fighting in Ukraine] may seem like a regional conflict, but that’s really not the case,” said Archbishop Zoria Yevstratiy of Chernihiv of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyivan Patriarchate. In an interview at the Atlantic Council on May 19, Yevstratiy described the situation in Ukraine as...
Why Mariupol Will Not be the Next Frontline
Analysts and journalists have begun to ask where the Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine will go next now that the second ceasefire agreement has failed. Skirmishes on the frontline in Shyrokyne, less than ten miles from Mariupol’s city limits, have raised concerns that Mariupol will be the next target. Geographically and...
Europe Needs to Help Ukraine Now!
Ukraine bleeds, but reforms impressively, while the West ignores it. The Minsk ceasefire agreement does not hold, though the intensity of the fighting has faded. In mid-March, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) doubled Ukraine’s international reserves, but the country’s finances remain fragile. Europe’s central banks should...
