Section: Research Organizations & Think Tanks about Ukraine
Moscow Views Cossacks as Both Opportunity and Threat
On May 29, the well-known Cossack ataman Yuri Churekov was arrested in Stavropol region. Investigators suspect Churekov of illegal arms operations. Reportedly, on April 28, Churekov and another individual sold two Kalashnikov automatic rifles to undercover government agents in the city of Goryachevodsk, Churekov’s hometown. When the police...
Russia’s Unending Balkan Intrigues
Historically, Russia has treated the Balkans as an area solidly within its sphere of vital interests, and that is still the case today. While individual Balkan countries are not especially important geostrategic players in Europe, their location imparts to them a greater, even possibly exaggerated, significance in Russian thinking. Moreover,...
NATO public opinion invites expanded Russian aggression
A just-released Pew Research survey of eight major NATO members does not bode well for peace in Europe, as almost half of each country’s population would not support the use military force to defend an ally if it became engaged in serious military conflict with Russia.While barely over half of those polled in the United States (56%) and...
Democrats and Europeans forget what NATO means
If the findings of a new Pew poll are to be taken seriously, one ought to think twice about buying that second vacation home in one of the Baltic states or the Polish countryside. According to Pew, although the public in eight sampled NATO nations largely blame Russia, Putin, and the Ukrainian separatists for the security crisis in Eastern...
Despite Some Violence, Ukraine’s LGBTI March Draws Remarkable Support
The achievement of the Equality March in Kyiv signals continued progress in Ukraine’s slowly thawing attitudes towards sexuality. …read more Source: Open Society...
Moving out of the Shadow of Russian Aggression
WASHINGTON – Before boarding a plane bound for the European Union’s Eastern Partnership Summit in Riga last month, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told members of her country’s Parliament that “we should…not raise any false expectations that we cannot fulfill later.” At the same time, Ukraine and Georgia...
Putting the ridiculously large $18 trillion US economy into perspective by comparing state GDPs to entire countries
Following the BEA release today of US state Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data for 2014, I was able to update the map above, which appeared on CD a year ago using 2013 data.The map above was created by matching economic output in US states in 2014 to foreign countries with comparable nominal GDPs, using BEA data for GDP by US state and GDP by...
Maidan 3.0: Another Revolution in Ukraine?
Will Ukrainians take to the streets in sufficient numbers to overthrow their US-backed leaders? Over the weekend a large protest in Kiev was violently broken up by masked men while the police looked on. No word from the US condemning the violence. Elsewhere, the US admits sanctions are hurting Europe and not harming Russia, but still it presses...
Hungary Gets Tough on Migrants, Ukraine Rebels Try to Find Crimea
Plus, Albania seeks arrest of Italian investor/TV mogul and Chechnya’s strongman leader accused of running a private taxation racket. …read more Source: Transitions Online...
Russian foreign policy: domestic constraints
President Putin is often presented by Western media as an autocratic leader free of checks and balances who imposes his will in foreign policy. If we could only climb ‘inside the head of Vladimir Putin’, to paraphrase the title of a recent book by French philosopher Michel Eltchaninoff, we could divine his intentions and predict his next...
