Section: Atlantic Council (USA)
The Achilles’ Heel of Ukraine’s Mighty Oligarchs
The Ukrainian government’s well-executed showdown in March 2015 to rein in the country’s wealthiest oligarch is the first of many battles with the oligarchs that lie ahead. In the battle with the oligarchs, Poroshenko—the owner of Roshen Confectionery Corporation and an oligarch himself—is uniquely positioned to fight. The President...
No Easy Outs for Putin: US Presidential Candidates United on Ukraine
Ukraine will remain at the heart of the conflict between the US and Russia beyond the 2016 presidential election. In the polls, Americans are united on Ukraine; the majority of respondents support increased sanctions on the Kremlin. All of the major presidential candidates, save Senator Rand Paul, take a tough approach with Moscow and support...
Economics 101: A Lesson for Ukraine
Ukraine Can Learn from Baltic States’ Experience with Reforms, says Lithuania’s Ex-Prime Minister As it struggles to fix its economy, Ukraine would do well to study the reforms successfully implemented by three fellow former Soviet republics in the Baltics, Andrius Kubilius, Lithuania’s former Prime Minister said April 16 at the...
Ukrainian Fighter Pilot’s Case More About Politics, Less About Law, Says Attorney
When Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine captured a fighter pilot loyal to Kyiv in June 2014, they got more than they bargained for. Nearly a year later, Nadiya Savchenko is on trial in Russia, and at the center of an international imbroglio. “This isn’t an ordinary case,” Russian attorney Mark Feygin said at the Atlantic Council...
Out of the Abyss: Anders Åslund Sees Hope for Ukrainian Economy
Ukraine: What Went Wrong and How to Fix It, the new book by Anders Åslund of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, presents so compelling an argument that—even before publication on April 17—it has already persuaded the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Western nations to adopt a $40 billion economic stabilization program for...
Is Authoritarianism Staging a Comeback?
New volume examines how authoritarian regimes have become smarter The late Samuel Huntington, a Harvard political scientist, famously talked about democratization as a series of wave motions forward and backward. Scholars label the burst of democratization in Latin America, Asia, and Eastern Europe in the 1980s and 1990s as the Third Wave. The...
A View from Luhansk: Waiting for War to Return
Luhansk Oblast – Ukrainians are waiting for war to start again. Since a ceasefire agreement went into effect in February, the winter has been relatively quiet in Luhansk Oblast, marred only by sporadic rockets fired from the territory of the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR). In many respects, life appears oddly normal in the small...
New Ukraine Disrupts Old Ukraine
There’s good reason for guarded optimism in the new Ukraine. President Petro Poroshenko and the parliament brought the country’s most powerful oligarch to heel in March 2015 and the justice department has set its sights on the richest oligarchs. …read more Source: Atlantic...
Poroshenko Goes Hunting for Oligarchs
Ukraine won an important battle in the war against the oligarchs with the removal of Dnipropetrovsk Governor Ihor Kolomoyskyi last week. But Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and the Ukrainian parliament are just getting started. On April 7 the government challenged billionaire Rinat Akhmetov’s grip on energy companies. Some...
Can Gazprom Really Cut Out Ukrainian Transit Post-South Stream?
Despite an unceremonious end to the controversial South Stream mega-pipeline, Russia remains outspoken and determined in its effort to carve Ukraine entirely out of its European natural gas deliveries which accounted for 62 billion cubic meters (bcm) of Gazprom’s European-bound exports in 2014. Formally announced in 2007, South Stream had...
