Section: Research Organizations & Think Tanks about Ukraine
Russia-US Relations in 2017
By Jacob L. Shapiro On Sat Jan. 28, U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke on the phone. The White House said in a statement afterwards that the conversation was a “significant start to improving the relationship between the United States and Russia,” and that the two sides hoped to move forward quickly in tackling...
A Two-State Solution? Just Not According to the Clinton Parameters
UN map of Israel via Wikimedia CommonsBESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 401 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: With the start of a new era in the White House, Israel must let go of the two-state solution as defined by the Clinton Parameters. It is time for a reassessment of Rabin’s approach, which stressed the importance of the preservation and...
Ukrainian court sabotages fight about judicial corruption
The National Anti-Corruption Bureau [NABU] has reacted with anger after a court rejected its application to have a Kyiv judge caught taking a huge bribe remanded in custody. The agency pulls no punches, calling the move sabotage and rejecting the court’s attempt to hide behind a dubious ‘statement’ issued recently by the High Council...
Igor Kotelyanets: On my brother Yevhen Panov & other political prisoners
Address to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe …read more Source: Kharkiv Human Rights Protection...
Donald Trump should ask Putin’s Ukrainian hostages how torture ‘works’
US President Donald Trump’s assertion in a recent interview that torture ‘works’ was shocking for several reasons, but it was also wrong. Most people, subjected to enough pain, will provide any answer to stop the torture. This is precisely why Russia’s FSB has systematically used such methods to imprison Ukrainian hostages....
Georgian Splits and Struggles
In Gore Vidal’s stage play turned film, “The Best Man,” President Art Hockstader says, “Power is not a toy we give to good children. It is a weapon. And the strong man takes it and uses it.” The struggles of Georgia’s enduring political rivals to acquire and to hold power, whether it is former President Misha Saakashvili and his...
Kleptocracy Weekly: January 27, 2017
Fueling Kleptocracy: Transparency in the Extractives Industry: Nate Sibley on how an imminent move to repeal a law requiring U.S. oil, gas, and mining firms to report payments to foreign governments would play into the hands of kleptocrats. Practicing and Prosecuting Foreign Corruption: Casey Michel talks to Steve Levine about the Foreign Corrupt...
America’s Russian Problem
Russian-American relations over the past several years have taken on some of the most familiar aspects of the Cold War. The conventional wisdom is extremely one-side, concluding that Russian President Vladimir Putin is entirely responsible for the setback as a result of his actions in Georgia, Crimea, Ukraine and Syria, and that the Russian...
The Brief: Can the Ukrainian model solve the Brexit conundrum?
Britain is having a mid-life crisis and wants, after 40 years of marriage to the EU, to trade the bloc in for a younger model. …read more Source:...
Goodbye Susan Rice, Hello National Security Options
Doug Bandow National Security Adviser Susan Rice needs a long rest. She recently stated that she didn’t “have the luxury of focusing on” only three nations, as suggested by the Washington Post in an interview. After a reporter (presumably jokingly) asked about Canada, she replied that it was one of the few countries on the planet that she...
