Section: The Jamestown Foundation (USA)
Moscow Plays Divide-and-Conquer Strategy Against Crimean Tatars
According to Refat Chubarov, the president of the Crimean Tatar World Congress and the elected chairperson of the Mejlis (the quasi-governing assembly of the Crimean Tatars), the Russian Federation is in the process of creating a Crimean Tatar military corps to neutralize protests and counter defiance against the occupying forces of the annexed...
Inside Latvia’s New State Defense Concept: Riga Declares Its Military Ambitions Ahead of NATO Summit
Latvia’s new State Defense Concept, approved by the Cabinet of Ministers this week (May 24), is an ambitious declaration for a stronger defense buildup. At the same time, it represents a kind of “wish list” just ahead of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) approaching July summit in Warsaw, during which Alliance members...
Ukraine Insists on International Police Mission in Donetsk-Luhansk
The top leaders of Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine (the “Normandy Group”) conferred by telephone on the night of May 23–24, at Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s initiative. Poroshenko sought an endorsement of Kyiv’s proposal for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to create and deploy an armed...
Surkov-Nuland Talks on Ukraine: A Nontransparent Channel (Part Two)
*To read Part One, please click here. US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland held talks, in Moscow, with Russian presidential advisor Vladislav Surkov, on May 17–18 (see Part One). According to the United States government’s official account of the meeting, the talks focused on improving security “in the Donbas” (sic) as well as...
Surkov-Nuland Talks on Ukraine: A Nontransparent Channel (Part One)
Informal discussions are sputtering along between Washington and Moscow over implementation of the Minsk armistice in Ukraine. This bilateral process originated in May 2015 as an accompaniment to the Barack Obama administration’s decision to seek Russia’s “help” on Syria. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland has been tasked to...
Euphoria in Kyiv and Soul-Searching in Moscow After Prisoner Exchange
Nadezhda Savchenko, a Ukrainian air force helicopter pilot, was captured by Moscow-backed separatist forces during fighting in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, in the summer of 2014, and ended up in a Russian jail. Savchenko was serving in Donbas as a volunteer soldier with a local volunteer infantry battalion, “Aydar,” while on leave from...
Russia’s Kerch Bridge: Time to Act for Ukraine
The bout of great-power euphoria sparked by the 2014 annexation of Crimea did not last long in Russia. The Kremlin quickly realized the region’s total dependence on mainland Ukraine. Over the past 60 years, heavy capital and labor investments as well as regular water, power and fuel supplies sent from Ukraine had transformed the formerly...
Shoigu Builds Mythical Russian Army
Since President Vladimir Putin appointed Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in November 2012, the official message from the top brass and leading defense officials presents the Russian military as advanced, reformed and undergoing modernization. Shoigu has introduced some departures from the course of reform set under his predecessor Anatoly...
The Futility of Dialogue With Putin
The need to keep the channels of dialogue open with an unpredictable Russia is taken as an absolute imperative by many Western politicians. But they are often surprised when this tactic backfires. The foreign ministers of the member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) held talks, on May 19–20, in preparation for the July...
Normandy Meeting Aborts Ukraine’s Proposal on OSCE Police Mission
Russia, Germany, France, and Ukraine held an expanded meeting of their foreign affairs ministers and senior staffs on May 11 in Berlin (the “Normandy” format). Two overlapping issues topped the meeting’s agenda: possible “elections” in the Russian-controlled Donetsk-Luhansk territory, and policing those proposed elections to make them look...
