Carnegie Moscow Center
The position of EU special representative for the south Caucasus plays an important role in the potential transformation and development of the volatile region.
The U.S. administration and politicians in Moscow have sharply divergent views on the ‘reset’ in bilateral relations. Where U.S. officials see dialogue, compromises, and concessions as a means of winning over the other side, the Russian elite considers dialogue to be a sign of weakness.
The crisis in Kyrgyzstan presents an opportunity for the three multilateral groups working in the area to do real, immediate good while building trust and demonstrating that cooperation is possible in the increasingly interconnected and fragile Eurasian security space.
This year, President Medvedev has broken with tradition and begun selecting some lesser-known candidates for gubernatorial posts, to the detriment of several political heavyweights.
Although Azerbaijan and Turkey have reached an agreement to supply natural gas to Turkey, the Nabucco pipeline project still faces many challenges.
The Kremlin’s new foreign policy agenda reflects Russia’s increasing need to channel resources towards modernization, a project which requires improved relations with the West.
In his first 100 days in office, Ukrainian President Yanukovych has set a positive new tone in his country's relations with Russia and reaffirmed Ukraine’s strategic orientation towards Europe.
The Russian government has been stepping up efforts to cancel the direct election of mayors following the cancellation of direct gubernatorial elections in 2004.
The Kremlin’s new strategy of “conservative modernization,” which emphasizes economic diversification and strengthening of the rule of law, cannot initiate any significant change, since the obstacles to modernization are endemic to the system itself.
Lifting visa requirements on travel from Russia to the European Union is likely to bring Russian citizens further into the institutional, normative, and cultural pathways of Europe.
Russia’s foreign policy should stop covering up the country’s diminishing status with aggressive rhetoric against the West and, instead, focus on attracting external resources for modernization.
United Russia is preparing for the October regional elections, its first serious test run prior to the State Duma elections in 2011, and the result of these preparations may see the party changed for the better.
Negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict are deadlocked, with serious consequences not only for the nations involved in the conflict, but also for the Armenia-Turkey reconciliation process.
Lasting change eluded Kyrgyzstan in 2005 when Bakiyev came to power. Now that his regime has collapsed, the new leaders will have to work hard to earn back the trust of the Kyrgyz people.
Tensions between Georgia and Russia continue to simmer, in the aftermath of the five-day war of August 2008. Without disinterested help from the West, Georgian president Saakashvili’s rhetorical invocation of a Russian threat could all too easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Putin's new strategic plan on the social and economic development of Russia's regions is neither an analysis of their problems nor a proposal for solving them. A widespread discussion is needed to identify and address the complex problems facing the country and its regions.
Six months after the signing of protocols intended to normalize relations between Armenia and Turkey and open the closed border between the two countries, the protocols are in danger of collapse.
Neither the expansion of NATO—even if Russia is added—nor the European security pact proposed by Medvedev alone are capable of uniting Europe. What is needed is the creation of a common security zone encompassing all of these states in which war and the use of armed forces would be abolished.
The tragic death of the Polish president might give Poland and Russia a chance to move beyond their historical animosity, but it will still take hard effort on both sides to break away from the past and at long last come to terms with each other.
The U.N. special envoy to Kyrgyzstan is working alongside the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to bring a peaceful resolution to the crisis there. The United States should resist the temptation to engage in a backroom deal to decide Kyrgyzstan’s fate.