Carnegie Moscow Center
Issues such as the Iran deal, the rise of the self-styled Islamic State, and the spread of Russian military and economic influence continue to highlight the importance of the Caucasus region on the world stage.
Following an initially cool reception, many former USSR republics have been lured by the sheer size of China’s investment in the One Belt One Road project, eager to capitalize on the wider initiative in line with their own domestic interests.
Russia is a superpower in decline, and the challenge it poses to the United States is very different from that posed by the Soviet Union.
A theory of “hybrid war” based on the events in Crimea and eastern Ukraine ignores both the chronology and cause-and-effect links between events on the ground.
Ukraine’s five wealthiest people have lost a collective $9.75 billion in the last year. To put this number in perspective, the IMF’s bailout package is worth $17.5 billion.
Rather than thinking about some grand architecture for the future, all sides of the current Russian-Western conflict should step away from the brink.
The sensational appointment of Mikheil Saakashvili to run Odessa will shake up both Ukraine and Georgia.
If the Eastern Partnership were all about the EU, money, and visas, it would have made sense. But it’s just a useless attempt to fill the void along the EU’s eastern borders. The only real goal is to divide post-Soviet Europe into Russia and “not Russia.”
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 EU needs to remold its support for fundamental political reform in Eastern Partnership partner states—and use this as a firmer base from which to assuage tensions with Russia.