Carnegie Moscow Center
At the moment, Russia and Iran remain partners in Syria, but their cooperation will be limited.
Kyiv seems to view the Crimea blockade as a pressure release valve - a way to allow agitated nationalists to blow off steam without sacrificing its own power. As such, the blockade is vastly preferable to some of the alternatives – namely allowing nationalists to vent their grievances in the Donbas, which would invite reprisals from Russia and the EU alike.
Ukrainian political activists have stepped up their campaign to isolate Crimea by sabotaging its electricity supply. Ordinary residents of Crimea are hostages of a hybrid political struggle between Ukraine and Russia.
Poroshenko must rely on a patchwork of political alliances that are alternately cooperative and confrontational. If he begins investigating officials — whether from the Yanukovych regime or otherwise — he will quickly face an army of new enemies and upset the fragile balance that allows him to remain in power.
A new proposal to extend repayment of a Russian intergovernmental loan to Ukraine may ultimately suit all parties.
The turmoil in eastern Ukraine has shaken the post–Cold War order. But there is reason to hope a more effective approach to building regional security might be possible.
While local elections proceeded peacefully, the fires are still burning around Kyiv.
The limited information available from the recent CIS summit in Kazakhstan suggests that Russia’s neighbors—and especially the states bordering the Caspian Sea—did not approve of Moscow’s military strikes in Syria.
Recently re-elected Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is making maneuvers to get closer to the West and distance himself from Russia. But Moscow is not worried: it knows that his fundamental values differentiate him from Western countries.
Many people are trying to rewrite the history of the 2008 Georgia-Russia War in the light of the Ukraine crisis. The EU’s report on the war is still a useful baseline and a reminder of how different the two conflicts are.