Carnegie Moscow Center
About seven years after abolishing compulsory military service and amidst the tense situation in Ukraine, Lithuania has restored conscription. Eurasia Outlook asked its experts to weigh in on the deeper meaning of this maneuver and what its consequences might be.
In the short term, Ukraine is on the verge of economic and, perhaps, political collapse. Yet in the longer term, the real question is whether the emergence of a coherent Ukrainian national identity creates a solid consensus for reform of the state and a sustained Western trajectory.
The European and U.S. sanctions seem to be the most challenging factor for western companies doing business in Russia. As sanctions lists and types of sanctions have got more and more complicated during the last year, clarity has decreased and risks have increased dramatically.
The confrontation between Russia and the United States that the world experiences today potentially could even be more dangerous than the Cold War, because each side believes that it has a monopoly on truth.
February 22, 2014, Ukraine’s then president Viktor Yanukovych surprised the world by fleeing Kyiv, just after an agreement had been reached with the country's opposition. One eventful year later, Eurasia Outlook asked several experts why they think Yanukovych fled when he did.
The Ukraine showdown is even scarier and more dangerous than most people think: President Putin is making it up as he goes along.
If Merkel is synonymous with Germany, then German political and diplomatic weight has certainly risen to the height of true European leadership.
The West should be linking aid to Ukraine to peace rather than war.
Ukraine and the global crisis over it point to the start of a new period in world politics. Great powers—Russia overtly, China covertly—are challenging the U.S.-dominated order. Also, in the foreseeable future, there will be no common security system in Europe.
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.