Ukraine’s elder statesman, Volodymyr Horbulyn, cautioned President-Elect Volodymyr Zelensky ahead of his inauguration that he should not fill the senior presidential staff and top national security posts with his personal friends and business associates. Ukraine’s previous presidents repeatedly made that mistake, privileging personal loyalties at... MORE

On May 15, Ukraine’s outgoing president, Petro Poroshenko, promulgated the “Law on Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as the State Language.” The accompanying communique characterizes this law as “one of the fundamental acts in the formation of Ukrainian statehood” (Ukrayinska Pravda, May 15).... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   Ukraine’s outgoing president, Petro Poroshenko, and the governing coalition (whose mandate is also about to expire) have bequeathed the foundation and building blocks of Ukrainian resilience against Russia’s adversity. President-elect Volodymyr Zelensky and the soon-to-be-elected next parliament... MORE

Moscow is treating Ukraine and its newly elected president, Volodymyr Zelensky, with the same implacable hostility as it did during Petro Poroshenko’s presidency. The Kremlin has not taken even a brief time-out that would have allowed it to assess Zelensky’s first decisions and the staffing... MORE

The European Commission and its president, Jean-Claude Juncker, are bracing for a May 13 deadline, presented to them on April 12 in a quasi-ultimatum form by Nord Stream Two project company CEO, Matthias Warnig (112.international, April 23). On the company’s behalf, Warnig threatens to sue... MORE

The Kremlin’s decree, offering Russian citizenship (“passportization”) to residents of the Russian-occupied Donbas (eastern portions of Donetsk and Luhansk provinces), is the latest in the series of legislative and economic moves to wrest this territory from Ukraine in real terms, absorbing it de facto—though not... MORE

On April 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a decree—with immediate effect—simplifying the procedure for granting Russia’s citizenship to residents of “certain areas of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk provinces” (Kremlin.ru, April 24), i.e., the Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine’s Donbas. Those residents are, by legal definition... MORE

The Kremlin is disappointed and angry with the Ukrainian presidential election’s landslide winner, Volodymyr Zelensky. The president-elect may have over-fulfilled Moscow’s forecasts by defeating the incumbent, President Petro Poroshenko, by 73 percent to 25 percent in the April 21 runoff (Ukraiynska Pravda, April 22). Moscow... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   Ashgabat undoubtedly sees Russia’s decision to restart the procurement of Turkmenistani natural gas as a welcome opportunity to diversify Turkmenistan’s gas export markets. At present, China holds the monopsony on Turkmenistani gas supplies. In the course of... MORE

On April 15, Gazprom resumed imports of natural gas from Turkmenistan to Russia via the Central Asia–Center pipeline system, after a complete halt of more than three years (Gazprom.com, Oilgas.gov.tm, April 15). The resumption follows three rounds of negotiations by Gazprom’s CEO, Aleksei Miller, with... MORE