Facing Western sanctions, some Russian pundits are rushing to find an easy way out through increased cooperation with Asia. However, nothing can replace the West for Russia.

Moscow’s most recent, failed attempt to cooperate with China on the Altai gas pipeline shows that its political ambitions are not compatible with elementary arithmetic.

If common sense prevails and the West resumes its cooperation with Russia, the consolidated response to security threats in Afghanistan will be far more effective than the current disjointed efforts by various countries.

Forthcoming elections give Ukraine a feeling of hope. However, for most Ukrainians the optimistic political advertisements contrast sharply with their own experiences. The war in the Donbas and the worsening economic and social situation are likely to bring more people to the parliament with no appetite for dialogue.

Turkey hesitates to fully embrace the U.S.-led coalition’s actions against the Islamic State. Ankara’s most crucial hesitation relates to the Kurdish issue which plays such a central role in Turkish policy in the Middle East.

Memorial’s new report documents the involvement of Chechen fighters in the conflict in Donbass. Their presence there is all about Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and a gesture of loyalty to Moscow.

For Russian business interests who use Hong Kong as a base for operations in mainland China or the Asia-Pacific region, or are listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEx), prodemocracy demonstrations were bad news.

In August, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called for early parliamentary elections to kick-start his reform agenda and to cleanse Ukraine of lawmakers who owed their loyalty to the ways and personalities of the pre-Maidan era.

The events in the Middle East in the last few months have muddled the primitive black-and-white picture painted by the advocates for the new Cold War. The modern world presents us with an incredibly complex, conflicting and at times somewhat bizarre picture.

Indian and U.S. leaders recently discussed military-technological cooperation. Time will tell whether the countries will be ready to transform their cooperation by translating words into actions.

The list of countries wanting to take advantage of Western sanctions to boost their food exports to Russia has nothing in common but the desire to gain a new market.

Facing economic collapse, a winter without Russian natural gas, and a frozen conflict in the Donbas, a divisive election may be the last thing Ukraine needs. But on October 26, Ukrainians will head to the polls to elect a new parliament.

Pakistan has been in turmoil for more than 40 days: protests headed by Imran Khan and Tahir-ul-Qadri have taken the country by storm. Yet the protest movement seems to be running out of steam. The weakening of the protest movement has much to do with Prime Minister Sharif’s decision not to crack down on the protests.

Georgia continues to try to prove itself a de facto ally of the United States, even without a formal alliance. This is the policy that Georgia needed all along: a stronger security relationship with the United States that makes it feel safer, without raising a red flag of NATO.

Israel will maintain its relations with the United States and the European Union, but it will also continue to develop its relations with Russia.

Leonid Kuchma deserves credit for stepping forward at a moment of national peril. A realist and truth-teller of Kuchma’s calibre is a strikingly rare commodity in Kyiv and the West these days.

The Ukraine crisis has betrayed fissures in the Russo-Kazakh relationship. It is difficult to predict a post-Nazarbayev Kazakh policy toward Russia, but developments in Ukraine suggest that future Kazakh leaders will have to deal with a new source of friction with the Kremlin.

This summer’s crisis in eastern Ukraine has made the European Union and Belarus keen to develop a more constructive relationship with each other.

Separatists across Europe are hailing Scotland's referendum, but they also know that breaking up is a traumatic process.

The growing hostility between the Russian and American societies accompanies the tensions in state bilateral relations.