The EU and Ukraine have suspended provisional application of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) until the end of 2015. Though their decision might look like Putin’s victory, this conclusion is not obvious. It is high time to stop viewing Ukraine through the prism of Russia policy.

Far-right extremists appear to be active on both sides of the Ukrainian conflict. Amid the mounting array of problems facing President Poroshenko, far-rights are only likely to add fuel to the fire.

Last year, Armenian President Sargsyan committed his country to joining Putin’s Eurasian Union, instead of going toward the EU. A year on, serious discussions between the EU and Yerevan on how to re-launch the relationship have yet to start.

East Asia is coming back to a phase in which economic considerations dominate. In this milieu Russia may lose her place in East Asia, because it will be deprived of an opportunity to play China against the West.

Western sanctions against Russia are driving the Kremlin toward closer economic, political, and potentially military alignment with China.

With tensions running high and diplomacy struggling to find a way out of the Ukraine crisis, inflammatory rhetoric violates the first rule of foreign policy: do no harm.

Russian terrorism is deeply rooted in politics, religion, and social issues. Also, it is part and parcel of the global radical movement. Ten years after the terrorist attack on a school in Beslan, the repeat of that tragedy is still possible.

Today, the Islamist militants who attacked a school in Beslan in 2004 are weaker than before. But the fact that the North Caucasus has fallen out of the headlines does not mean that its problems are solved.

The only possible source of money for the Power of Siberia pipeline is no one else but China, and the terms of this assistance will be dictated from Beijing. The Kremlin’s inability to come to terms with the Western world does not come cheap.

Europe’s and the United States’ principal challenge for the coming years is to develop a new strategy for dealing with Russia. This strategy will have to be built on a realistic understanding of Russia as it is, rather than on what the West would like it to be and hopes it will one day become.

NATO leaders are gathering for a much-anticipated summit near the Welsh capital. Can they convince observers that they appreciate the scale of the challenges facing the alliance?

Raul Khajimba has attained the position of Abkhazian president at the fourth attempt, but he knows it's a far from enviable job.

John Mroz, who died earlier this month, was the founder of the EastWest Institute, a novel concept of a “think and do tank” which sought to organize Track 2 and Track 1.5 discussions across the Cold War divide. Mroz has departed precisely at the moment when the need for his services has peaked again.

In the short term, Belarus benefits from the Ukrainian crisis and the stand-off between the West and Russia. However, the worry in Minsk is that Ukraine may yet collapse, dragging Russia along with it.

Under Putin, it seems that there will be no more celebration of the end of Communist rule: the price paid for it is now deemed to be too high.

The world is getting used to the Ukrainian conflict and the confrontation between Russia and the West. If Moscow and the Western countries start to consider this state of affairs the new norm, the consequences may be quite unappealing.

As Petro Poroshenko embarks on a long steep journey as leader of Ukraine, he would do well to study Eduard Shevardnadze's statecraft in Georgia, with both his great successes and the later disappointments.

The tensions between Russia and the West heightened over the issues of compliance with the INF treaty. In this case, it would not be prudent for Russia to seriously compromise its long-term security yet again while pursuing tactical goals or relying on superficial arguments.

While Kiev is desperate to achieve a full military victory almost at any cost, Moscow is reaching out with humanitarian aid, confusing and confounding its opponents. As to the war there, it still continues.

It has been six years since the end of the Russia-Georgia war, but its effects still pervade political debates between the Georgian Dream coalition and the once powerful Mikheil Saakashvili’s United National Movement (UNM).