Latest Eurasia Daily Monitor Articles
SLOVAK DETOUR WOULD DEFEAT ODESSA-BRODY OIL TRANSPORT PROJECT
Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych’s government seems to have abandoned a project to extend the Odessa-Brody pipeline into Poland for pumping Caspian oil outside Russian control. Instead, Yanukovych is negotiating with the government of Slovakia on a plan to transport both Caspian and Russian oil... MORE
DUMA DEPUTY BLAMES PUTIN FOR BESLAN MASSACRE
On February 6 Yuri Ivanov, a Communist deputy in the Russian State Duma, declared that President Vladimir Putin had personally ordered Russian forces to use grenade launchers to fire on a school building to end the siege in Beslan nearly three years ago. In September... MORE
OFFICIAL CHISINAU SEEKS RECOGNITION OF MOLDOVAN ETHNICITY AND MINORITY IN ROMANIA
Conflicting views on national and linguistic identity and history, marring official Bucharest-Chisinau relations, have now led Chisinau to transfer the dispute onto Romania’s turf. Responding to Bucharest’s insistence that Moldovans in the Republic of Moldova are ethnically and linguistically Romanians, official Chisinau has now begun... MORE
YUSHCHENKO’S, TYMOSHENKO’S BLOCS PROCLAIM UNITY, SET GOALS
The pro-presidential Our Ukraine bloc (NU) and the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (BYT) have signed an accord proclaiming a unified opposition. It is aimed against the majority coalition in parliament, which was formed last summer by Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions, the Socialists, and... MORE
ASTANA OPTS FOR “GOVERNABLE” DEMOCRACY
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has invited Turkmenistan’s newly elected President Gurbanguly Berdimukhamedov to visit Kazakhstan. While the new Turkmen leader undoubtedly could learn a great deal from Astana in terms of political reforms, the Kazakh model is not without its flaws. Over the last two... MORE
THE IRANIAN TEST FOR PUTIN’S NEW COURSE
The report on Iran’s nuclear program that Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), presented to the UN Security Council on February 22 presents an inescapable challenge for Russia. The fact of Tehran’s non-compliance with Resolution 1737, adopted by the Security... MORE
KREMLIN MOVES TO REPAIR DAMAGED INTERNATIONAL IMAGE
Russian officials have strongly endorsed efforts to improve the country's tarnished international reputation. On February 21, Oleg Morozov, first deputy speaker of the State Duma, declared, "A negative image of Russia entails a lack of confidence in us, in our political system, in our economy,... MORE
AKHMETOV TIES MILITARY REFORM TO PARTNERSHIP WITH RUSSIA
Kazakhstan plans to cooperate more closely with Russia’s defense industries in order to modernize its own armed forces by 2015. The timing of this announcement enabled Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Defense to counter negative publicity surrounding the crash of a MiG-31 on February 16, which resulted... MORE
SECESSIONIST LEADERS COORDINATE ACTIVITIES IN MOSCOW
Between February 16 and 21, the “presidents” of South Ossetia and Transnistria and the “foreign ministers” of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transnistria paid overlapping visits to Moscow for talks with Russian government officials and in the State Duma. The three “foreign ministers” also conferred among... MORE
UKRAINIAN-RUSSIAN STEEL MERGER ENTAILS TOP-LEVEL POLITICAL RAMIFICATIONS
The Industrial Union of Donbas (IUD), Ukraine’s second-largest steel-making group, is negotiating a merger with the Russian Metalloinvest group controlled by Alisher Usmanov, who also heads Gazprom’s investment arm for assets other than gas, Gazprominvestholding. An IUD-Metalloinvest merger could generate far-reaching political and business repercussions... MORE