Latest Eurasia Daily Monitor Articles
MORE SETBACKS FOR RULE OF LAW IN UKRAINE
On March 4, 2005, former Ukrainian interior minister Yuriy Kravchenko was found dead with two bullet wounds to the head. The official verdict was suicide. Two years on, Kravchenko’s family has launched a private investigation claiming that two self-inflicted gunshots to the head would be... MORE
LUKOIL AT THE CROSSROADS
The destruction of Yukos by the Russian state left Lukoil as Russia’s largest oil company not controlled by the Kremlin, though of necessity loyal to it and often in its graces. Lukoil’s nominal independence from the state is about to end, however. This privately owned... MORE
RUSSIAN ECONOMIC TIES WITH UZBEKISTAN HIT TURBULENCE
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov traveled to Tashkent on March 7 in a bid to prop up the Russia-Uzbek economic partnership, but the trip also served to highlight unresolved economic issues between the two countries. Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov's March 7 visit to Uzbekistan... MORE
KYRGYZSTAN PREPARES TO HOLD SCO SUMMIT THIS SUMMER
This summer Kyrgyzstan plans to host the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s (SCO) annual summit and assume its presidency. SCO members include China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan; while India, Iran, Mongolia, and Pakistan hold observer status. While this is a unique chance for Kyrgyzstan to... MORE
KOMMERSANT DEFENSE CORRESPONDENT FALLS TO HIS DEATH
Last Friday, March 2, Ivan Safronov, a defense correspondent for Kommersant newspaper, fell to his death from a fourth-story window in his apartment block in central Moscow. The Moscow police are treating the death as suicide, but they still opened a criminal investigation to look... MORE
CORRUPTION PROBES IN UKRAINE: TABLES TURNED
As leadership has changed at Ukraine’s Interior Ministry, many former officials who fled Ukraine amid accusations of corruption after the Orange Revolution have nothing to fear. Criminal cases against them are being closed one by one. The Orange leaders cry foul, saying that this means... MORE
TURNING THE BALTIC SEA INTO A SECOND BOSPORUS?
The Russian government recently declared its intention to turn the Baltic Sea into an oil-shipping corridor to Western Europe, carrying up to 150 million tons of Russian oil annually aboard tankers. This intention constitutes only the most recent threat to maritime safety and ecology in... MORE
BELGIUM – GAZPROM’S NEXT “HUB” IN EUROPE?
European Union host country Belgium traditionally has been an advocate of EU integration. But its latest actions illustrate the absence of an EU energy policy and the member countries’ growing tendency to strike bilateral energy deals with Russia. Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, along with... MORE
YEREVAN MOVES TO DEPOLITICIZE LAW-ENFORCEMENT, JUDICIARY
Armenia is embarking on a sweeping structural reform of its law-enforcement system that is supposed to bring it into greater conformity with European standards. Under a government bill approved by parliament on February 26, Armenian prosecutors will be stripped of their most significant authority: to... MORE
RUSSIA USING CSTO TO COUNTERBALANCE NATO
On February 28 Nikolai Bordyuzha, secretary-general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), addressed a meeting of students from the Russian-Tajik (Slavonic) University in Dushanbe. Ostensibly he promoted the CSTO as an organization that seeks to create an integrated security system dealing with military and... MORE