New Atlanticist

DIRECT TRANSLATION: ‘Donbas, the Heart of Russia’

By Irena Chalupa

A Commentator Close to Putin Writes: Unitary Ukraine is Finished A prominent Russian business magazine, Ekspert, publishes a lead article this week by two highly placed Russian policy thinkers writing about Ukraine’s southeastern provinces and proclaiming, “We won’t abandon them.” That emotional headline might represent more than just another piece of nationalist opinion-making, for the […]

Storify: #ACAbdullah with Afghanistan Presidential Candidate Dr. Abdullah Abdullah

The stakes could not be higher. Afghanistan faces an historic presidential election on June 14 with a runoff between frontrunners Dr. Ashraf Ghani and Dr. Abdullah Abdullah. 

Ukraine Needs, and Could Manage, a Polish-Style ‘Shock Therapy’ Reform Plan

By Irena Chalupa

Veterans of Poland’s Economic Transformation Urge Ukraine to Clean Corruption ‘to the Bone’ Today Poland and Ukraine have closer relations than ever in their mutual history. Since the fall of communism, a historically adversarial relationship has evolved into a strategic partnership. Over the past decade, Polish statesmen such as Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski or former […]

Karachi Airport Attack Shows Vulnerabilities in Pakistan’s Anti-Terror Strategy

By New Atlanticist

Government’s New Policy Focuses on Response to Attacks, Should Stress Prevention Militants launched a well-coordinated, commando-style attack on Karachi’s Jinnah International Airport Sunday night, killing at least 18 people and seizing part of Pakistan’s busiest air-travel hub for more than five hours. Shuja Nawaz, director of the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center, provides an early […]

DIRECT TRANSLATION: Russian Fighters, Killed in Ukraine, are Buried Quietly Near Moscow

By James Rupert

Russia’s Ekho Moskvy radio and the newspaper Novaya Gazeta (partly owned by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev), have been peeling back the secrecy surrounding the thirty-one Russian citizens killed two weeks ago fighting with secessionist militias in southeast Ukraine. Novaya Gazeta reports that thirty of those killed were ethnic Russians, and the other a Chechen. […]

Ukraine’s New President Must Begin Reforms Immediately

By Sabine Freizer

Poroshenko Must Partner With Prime Minister Yatsenyuk to Make Progress As Petro Poroshenko begins his first week as Ukraine’s president, his country needs him to begin difficult reforms immediately, even as his government struggles with the Russian-backed uprising in eastern Ukraine. The immediacy is enforced by a shriveling economy that is likely to lose between […]

DIRECT TRANSLATION: Russia’s Secret Fighters in Ukraine

By James Rupert

A Reporter Escorts 31 Bodies Home to Russia, Their Names Kept Hidden in Death as in Warfare President Vladimir Putin, and hence Russia’s state-run mass media, say the war in eastern Ukraine is a “people’s struggle” by ethnic Russians against attacks by ethnic Ukrainian fascists and Nazis backed by the United States. In the Kremlin’s […]

In the Fight With Russia, Can Volunteer Battalions Save Ukraine?

By Irena Chalupa

Only his family and closest friends know his real name and his face has never been shown in public. Television viewers have seen only his eyes and heard his calm voice, a voice that speaks many uncomfortable truths. Semen Semenchenko, is the nom de guerre of an ethnic Russian man from Donetsk, a father of […]