Considering Russia’s shocking transformation in the course of just half a year, it is easy to forget that last February the country was united in the joy of hosting the Sochi Winter Olympic games. The issues that dominated the political agenda at the start of... MORE

Yazidis, an Iraqi minority, have started arriving as refugees in Europe, where they encounter people who are supposedly causing their problems back at home, including the Chechens. A conflict between such refugees and Chechens erupted in the small German town of Celle, which is close... MORE

Beyond the newly imposed partition lines, Russian regular and irregular forces are incessantly attacking Ukrainian positions in the Debaltseve salient, the Donetsk airport, and around Mariupil on the Azov Sea. Capturing these positions—a centrally located rail and road transport hub, the international airport, and the... MORE

Russia is using the ceasefire as an opportunity to cement and expand its military presence, directly as well as through the Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” (DPR, LPR). Following the September 5 and September 19–20 armistice agreements, Russian regular and proxy forces have re-captured considerable... MORE

The ceasefire agreements, signed on September 5 and 19–20, have, in no sense, halted Russia’s multi-dimensional war against Ukraine. This includes a still-“hot” military conflict and a “cold” propaganda war. Nor could these agreements stop Russia from prosecuting the conflict in the absence of effective... MORE

Since Russia occupied Crimea with its strategically important naval port and the Russian military base in Sevastopol this past February (UNIAN, February 27), life there has become increasingly dangerous for those who do not share the political views of the Russian leadership. It was the... MORE

Next month (November 2014), it will be 25 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, which ended the Cold War. But a new cold war is apparently swiftly taking shape between the East and the West. Notably, the Ukrainian crisis continues to unfold into... MORE

With the diplomatic standoff between Russia and the West over Ukraine still far from reaching a resolution, and as Moscow continues to support the separatist movements in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, the Russian economy keeps sliding into a recession. The International Monetary Fund... MORE

On September 30, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the fall 2014 Russian military draft. The government is expected to draft 154,100 men, the same number as in the spring 2014 draft campaign. The Russian laws on the draft will be extended to newly-annexed... MORE

The September national survey by the Independent Institute for Socio-Economic and Political Studies (IISEPS), the most trusted Belarusian polling firm, headquartered in Lithuania, shows that both the electoral rating of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and public trust vested in him have gone up. Whereas in June,... MORE