Carnegie Moscow Center
Dialogue between Russia and the United States is needed to defuse tension and tone down irresponsible statements on both sides about nuclear weapons.
If China and Russia manage to coordinate the Eurasian Economic Union and the Silk Road Economic Belt, the change will mean not only a more genuine partnership between Moscow and Beijing, but China’s arrival, with Russia’s support, as a truly Eurasian power.
The sensational appointment of Mikheil Saakashvili to run Odessa will shake up both Ukraine and Georgia.
Putin has realized that the expansionist project overextended itself; it is now too dangerous to continue beating the war drum. Or perhaps the Russian president simply lost interest in Novorossiya. He has a different game to play now—that of Russia’s “pivot to the East.”
The Xi’s visit to Moscow was the realization of a “win-win” formula beloved by the Chinese. The negotiations between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin can be seen as a shared symbolic victory and as a broad declaration of good intentions, but the fight over who can benefit more in practical terms has already begun
The success of the Urumqi meeting between the representatives of the Afghan government and the Taliban, also attended by Chinese and Pakistanis, is doubtful. The role of Pakistan in the organization of the meeting is the most controversial issue.
There is sobering news for the EU in two new polls from Georgia and Moldova, showing that public support for the European project is faltering.
The Ukraine crisis was not just about Ukraine, or even Europe. It was about the global order, which promises a long competition with a yet-unforeseen result.
Ukrainian society—particularly sectors that pushed for greater accountability and transparency during the EuroMaidan Revolution—and Western governments, particularly the United States, are pushing Poroshenko to rein in the oligarchs.
The conflict in Ukraine is anything but frozen. The dynamics of this conflict are driven as much by Ukrainian domestic affairs and local commanders’ decisions in the conflict zone as they are by any Cold War-style stand-off between East and West.