Section: Research Organizations & Think Tanks about Ukraine
March was a roller coaster month for Ukraine
By Steven PiferUkrainians rode a wild roller coaster in March. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy began the month by firing the prime minister and reshuffling the cabinet, prompting concern that oligarchs were reasserting their influence. COVID-19 and its dire economic implications, however, refocused attention. At the end of the month, the Rada...
Ukraine Braces for Coronavirus Impact
Ahead of expected infection peak, experts see financial crisis looming.Analysts are warning that the coronavirus pandemic may be particularly damaging for Ukraine’s export-heavy economy, with potential to even change the country’s political direction. Although Ukraine has had a relatively small number of infections compared to other...
March was a roller coaster month for Ukraine
By Steven PiferUkrainians rode a wild roller coaster in March. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy began the month by firing the prime minister and reshuffling the cabinet, prompting concern that oligarchs were reasserting their influence. COVID-19 and its dire economic implications, however, refocused attention. At the end of the month, the Rada...
How the COVID-19 pandemic will develop in Ukraine
According to data compiled by Ukraine’s Ministry of Health, by 27 March more than 200 cases of COVID-19 were confirmed nationwide, with five fatalities. However, there is a risk of the epidemic soon developing on a much larger scale. …read more Source:: Centre for Eastern Studies...
The moratorium on the sale of agricultural land is lifted in Ukraine
The Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) passed the Act on introducing an agricultural land market in Ukraine on 31 March at the second reading. The document envisages that the moratorium on the sale of agricultural land will be lifted on 1 July 2021. A transitional period will apply for two years – during this period only natural persons will...
Erdoğan Battles on Multiple Fronts in Risky Regional Power Bid
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, photo via Office of the President of RussiaBESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,510, March 30, 2020 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is at odds with just about everybody. He is on opposite sides with Russia in Syria as well as Libya and is trying the patience of his US and European allies. Turkey and...
Turkey’s Syria Intervention Serves Israeli Strategic Interests
Map of Idlib ceasefire as of March 6, 2020, map by OpenTopoMap and MilitaryMaps via Wikimedia CommonsBESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,508, March 29, 2020 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Turkey’s invasion of Syria to protect Idlib will bog it down in a war it cannot win. At the same time, it severely weakens the Assad regime and could help oust Iran...
The Deep State’s Demolition of Democracy
“Thank God for the Deep State,” declared former acting CIA chief John McLaughlin while appearing on a panel at the National Press Club last October. In 2018, the New York Times asserted that Trump’s use of the term “Deep State” and similar rhetoric “fanned fears that he is eroding public trust in institutions, undermining the idea of...
Coronavirus Delivers Another Devastating Blow to the Iranian Regime
Coronavirus patients at the Imam Khomeini Hospital in Tehran, Iran, photo via Wikimedia CommonsBESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,507, March 27, 2020 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The coronavirus pandemic has hit Iran hard, and not only on the health front. The virus is the latest in a succession of blows to the Iranian regime’s domestic status,...
Jon Basil Utley – A Hero For Our Times
Jon Utley saved my life. While I hadn’t literally fallen into a well and had him pull me out, in a figurative sense that is exactly what he did. Having just spent most of the 1990s living and working abroad in Hungary, I found myself back in Washington, DC, in a well-known neoconservative think tank. It’s a long story, but much of...
