Section: Research Organizations & Think Tanks about Ukraine
Scandal in the Ukrainian Security Service: Last Breath of the Old Political System?
On June 18, 248 Ukrainian lawmakers—out of the 422 present in the Verkhovna Rada (parliament)—approved President Petro Poroshenko’s request to fire Valentyn Nalyvaychenko as head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) amid rising public criticism and top officials’ growing recriminations over the government’s inability to...
Saakashvili Grapples With Daunting Odds in Ukraine’s Odesa
Three weeks ago, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko appointed Georgia’s former president, Mikheil Saakashvili, as governor of Ukraine’s Odesa province, with a dual mission: to jump-start reforms based on his experience in reforming Georgia, and to consolidate Ukrainian control in a territory potentially targeted by Russia....
Financial Defaults May Loom for North Caucasian Republics
Russian news agencies reported in early June that Novgorod Oblast in central Russia had become the country’s first region to default on its financial obligations. An official from the Novgorod financial department told RBK news agency that the region failed to make a payment of $33 million to the Russian state bank VTB (Rbc.ru, June 9). VTB...
Putin’s Economic Forum: Delays, Obfuscations and Irrelevance
The annual St. Petersburg economic forum used to be a major gathering of investors and stakeholders, who would anticipate President Vladimir Putin’s keynote speech every year for hints about where to find the richest dividends in the Russian economy. This year, however, the traditional pomp was reduced and the potential margins of profit...
What’s Ahead for Russia and the West? Four Scenarios
Over a year into the ever-worsening Ukraine crisis, there is little doubt that an optimistic era in Russian-Western relations has ended. Several scenarios for the changing relationship between the West and Russia are conceivable and can indicate longer-term trajectories that can endow Western debate and policymaking on Russia with much needed...
Russia, corruption and the dark side of the Beautiful Game
Watching the talented, spirited athletes at the FIFA Woman’s World Cup is balm for one’s spirit in a troubled time. They are true exemplars of The Beautiful Game. But off the field, behind the glamour and FIFA’s front-office bravado, there is the stench of corruption. Corruption is the way of so much of the world. Grease a palm,...
The Agreement That Will Save Ukraine
Image credit: rommma, iStockOther Mediaquoting Henry A. Kissingervia National InterestHere’s how the West and Russia might be able to peacefully resolve the crisis in Ukraine. …read more Source: Hoover...
It’s Hard to Take Russian Propaganda Seriously. But We Must.
Three Russian television stations interviewed Andrei Petkov from a hospital bed in Nikolayev, Ukraine, in April 2014. Rossia 1 described him, with a bandage on his nose, as an ordinary citizen attacked by neo-Nazis and nationalists; NTV named him a German spy for a secret European organization; and the National Independent News of Crimea...
Kremlin Aide Warns U.S. Against Arms Deployment, Slovak Schools Slammed Over Roma Policies
Plus, Tajikistan moves to silence renegade special forces commander, and the UN blasts Hungary’s anti-immigrant billboards. …read more Source: Transitions Online...
New Greek proposals seen as going in right direction but agreement still far from certain
New Greek proposals seen as going in right direction but agreement still far from certainGreece was reported to have last night sent new proposals to its creditors ahead of today’s meetings of Eurozone finance ministers and Eurozone leaders. EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said the proposals “go in the right...
