Carnegie Moscow Center
It is not enough to urge Vladimir Putin to leave office. The Russian opposition must also seek the elimination of the autocratic model of power that Putin represents, and push for real constitutional political reform.
Relations between the Kremlin and Kyiv are at a new low after serious gas shortages in Europe this winter. Ukraine needs to be doing more to reduce its dependence on Russian natural gas.
The core issue in the NATO-Russia relationship is the mutual deficit of trust. The Euro-Atlantic area needs a “security community,” where no member expects any other state to use force or threaten to use force against it.
Vladimir Putin’s article in the Izvestia daily demonstrates both his anxiety over the recent protests and his inability to recognize how significantly Russian society is changing.
The election of a young reformer to the presidency in the breakaway region of Transnistria is a triumph for democracy, but it does not signal an irrevocable turn towards the West.
Vaclav Havel, the last president of Czechoslovakia and the first president of the Czech Republic, died on December 18, 2011. He lived according to his principles and never compromised on matters of conscience.
As popular pressure builds in Russia against the political status quo, it is increasingly clear that if the current opportunity to bring the authorities to a real dialogue is lost, Russia may have to wait another generation before another opportunity arises.
On its twentieth anniversary, the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program remains an important tool for international cooperation to reduce nuclear dangers, but there remain some tough questions about the continued viability of the model.
In 1991, Ukrainians had high hopes for a democratic and prosperous future. However, two decades on, the direction their country will take is still far from clear.
Despite the hopes placed in the political negotiations in Chisinau over the past few weeks, the Moldovan people may not have a new president any time soon.