During the horrific events in Odessa, local police stood idly by as violence around them escalated. Police reform in Ukraine is crucially important, but nobody knows how to create honest and professional law enforcement in a thoroughly corrupt state.

Erdogan’s statement of condolences to the descendants of Armenians murdered by the Ottomans can let Turks feel freer and more comfortable to take a more critical look at their history, as well as reduce the tension between Turkey and Armenia.

After the May 25 poll, a new president of Ukraine will hardly inaugurate stability. One can only hope that Ukraine decides its future before it turns into a burnt-out case.

The south and even the east of Ukraine do not express massive support for separatism. The violent clashes in Odessa may signal a turning point—indicating that Ukrainian society itself is trying to stop the country’s fragmentation.

The Afghan presidential elections did take place. The traditional and arch-conservative Afghan society is gradually getting used to regular democratic political instruments, although the situation in Afghanistan remains unpredictable, and the national consensus is far out of reach.

The paranoia, intolerance of dissent, spy-mania, and anti-Western mood in Azerbaijan are all painfully reminiscent of Putin’s Russia.

The new Russian legislation allowing regions of another country to seek to join the Russian Federation gives Moscow leverage over a number of regions. Georgians are worrying that South Ossetia could be one of these regions.

After the end of the Cold War, the West neglected the task of solving the “Russia problem” through integration. Trying to solve it now through economic warfare is not going to work.

It would be better for Russia to reach an agreement with the West on the territorial integrity of Ukraine, coupled with an assurance of its permanent neutrality and a simultaneous accession by Ukraine to the Association Agreement with the EU and to the Russia-led Customs Union.

Ukraine’s Jews are, for now, not a central part of the political drama, but the repeated use of anti-Semitism as a tool in the country’s full-contact politics sends a worrying signal nonetheless.

Ukraine is facing a serious threat which appears to lie within the country’s own domestic politics.

In his statement on the “Armenian Question,” Erdogan goes further than any other Turkish leader before him and offers condolences to the descendants of Ottoman Armenians. However, instead of rhetoric, it would be better for each of the nations to concentrate on normalizing Armenian-Turkish relations and opening the closed border.

The video bulletins from the conflict zone in Ukraine produced by Simon Ostrovsky demonstrate that this country is a perfect trial bed for new forms of journalism.

The current situation in Ukraine has intensified the long-simmering debate in Finland about joining NATO.

Strong Japanese-Russian relations are economically beneficial and a strategic counterbalance against China’s influence. But the Ukraine crisis and Japan’s U.S. loyalties could have damaging effects.

A counter-insurgency strategy from Iraq and Afghanistan may be proving effective as a tool of Russian or pro-Russian insurgency in Eastern Ukraine.

The Indian parliamentary election is in full swing. The name of the future prime minister and the party he will represent are not all that important. It is far more important to the voters that the new government be efficient and professional.

Kazakhstan’s new Prime Minister, Karim Massimov, is “the president’s most trusted man.” If his term lasts long enough, he may become a sort of political double for President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Kyiv’s anti-separatist operation could isolate and limit separatist forces in Eastern Ukraine, while the government attempts to deliver financial and economic assistance to the East, which is vital to Kyiv’s ability to reassert itself in the region.

Russia will likely succeed in holding sway over Ukraine and turning this country into its buffer zone, but it cannot secure itself from the people’s resentment and resistance.