Carnegie Moscow Center
The West should be linking aid to Ukraine to peace rather than war.
Turkey and Russia have a deeply “compartmentalized” relationship. A disagreement on one regional issue—Ukraine, Georgia or even Syria—will not necessarily derail their bilateral relations.
The Minsk agreements lay the political groundwork for peace in Ukraine. Still, several important questions remain. Moreover, the agreements are likely to be too little too late for the warring parties: they may not settle for anything less than what they consider victory.
The danger for the EU in the rapprochement between Russia and China lies in the fortification of the Russian economy against sanctions and in an increased assertiveness for China.
Syrian jihad will not be replicated by Central Asian combatants returning home, but fundamentalist ideals are long-established in this region and will not go away.
Eight months of continuous presidential vacuum is bad news for the future of Lebanon’s democracy and stability.
Currently, Russia and Saudi Arabia are neither friends nor foes, and the status of bilateral relations and their future remain obscure. This, in turn, is clearly reflected in the polyphony of views on Saudi Arabia existing in Russian society.
Recently the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations has drawn the attention of both Turkish and world media. However, current activities around the “Armenian question” failed to create solid ground for real compromise between the two states.
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev has managed to use the Ukraine crisis as a sort of stepping stone to elevate his international profile and Kazakhstan’s geopolitical status.
The Ukraine crisis has had an increasingly negative effect on Russia’s relations with Belarus and Kazakhstan, its closest allies and partners in the Customs Union and Eurasian Union.