Section: The Jamestown Foundation (USA)
Belarus: End of the Prisoners’ Dilemma
In mid-August 2015, two major events took center stage in media coverage of Belarus: the trip to Ukraine of Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei as well as the release of six people, labeled political prisoners in the West, by President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who pardoned them ostensibly out of dedication to “the tenets of humanism.”...
Several North Caucasus Human Rights Organizations Labeled ‘Foreign Agents’
After the scandal following the labeling of the Russian human rights organizations like Memorial, under the leadership of Oleg Orlov, and Grazhdanskoe Sodeistvie, under the leadership of Svetlana Gannushkina, as “foreign agents,” it was expected that rights groups in the North Caucasus would be the next targets. Nearly 9,300 non-governmental...
Russia Spurns Ukrainian Offer of Constitutional Status for Donetsk-Luhansk
Russian President Vladimir Putin has rejected Ukraine’s offer of constitutional status for the Donetsk-Luhansk territory as unacceptable. Addressing an international economic forum in Vladivostok, on his way back from China today (September 4), Putin dismissed Kyiv’s offer as inadequate in content; unilateral, instead of being...
Action Plan to End War in Ukraine Charted at Berlin Meeting (Part Two)
*To read Part One, please click here. On August 24, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called together a unique meeting, in Berlin, of the “Normandy” format minus Russia (though essentially in consensus with Moscow). Merkel, along with French President François Hollande and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, outlined a series of steps that need...
Action Plan to End War in Ukraine Charted at Berlin Meeting (Part One)
An overall consensus, in broad outline, seems to have taken shape among the main European players, pre-eminently Moscow and Berlin, to accelerate a solution to the conflict “in” Ukraine by the end of this year, on Russia’s terms. German Chancellor Angela Merkel hosted a meeting in Berlin on August 24, in an unprecedented “Normandy minus...
Autumn Pause Follows Donbas August Fighting
Fighting has dramatically subsided in eastern Ukraine by September 1. A couple of weeks ago, in mid-August, the situation was different and the guns were blazing. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told journalists: “It is now possible to call the ‘separation line’ [in Donbas] a ‘front line.’ ” Lavrov accused the Ukrainian...
Putin Absent, His Agenda Dominates at Normandy Group Meeting on Ukraine
German Chancellor Angela Merkel hosted Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and French President François Hollande, on August 24, in Berlin (“Normandy” format minus Russia), at Poroshenko’s urgent request. This unprecedented meeting followed systematic violations of the ceasefire and open sabotage of the international monitoring mission by...
Spain’s African Exclave of Ceuta: Mainstay of the Russian Navy in the Mediterranean?
On August 5, 2015, four Russian warships—the missile cruiser Moskva, the escort ship Pytlivy, the large sea tanker Ivan Bubnov and Shakhtyor, a rescue tug—docked at the Mediterranean port of Ceuta, a Spanish exclave in North Africa, claimed by Morocco, and located just south of Gibraltar, across the Strait (Gibraltarpanorama.gi, August 6, 2015)....
Ukraine’s Pro-Government Parties Join Forces Ahead of Local Elections
The parties of President Petro Poroshenko, Kyiv Mayor Vitaly Klichko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk have joined forces ahead of the local elections scheduled for October 25. This is in order to defeat the Opposition Bloc, which is associated with the government overthrown in February 2014; oligarchic groups such as the Ukrainian Alliance of...
Russia Hosts CSTO Exercises in Western Military District
In late August, Russia hosted military exercises for elite forces assigned to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Vzaimodeystviye (Collaboration) 2015 was staged near Pskov, in the Western Military District (MD), testing CSTO rapid reaction capabilities and unit interoperability. The scenario concentrated upon a crisis in a...
