Commentary & Analysis

Working with a wide community of experts and thought-leaders, the Eurasia Center delivers cutting-edge analysis and commentary on issues affecting Eurasia and the transatlantic community.

Event Recap

Apr 4, 2016

“Solved?”: Investigating Boris Nemtsov’s Murder

By Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center

One year after the public assassination of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, General Alexander Bastrykin, has announced that the case has been “solved.” However, the legitimacy of the investigation is questionable as the Investigative Committee has refused to qualify Nemtsov’s murder under Article 277 of the Criminal Code as […]

Europe & Eurasia Russia

New Atlanticist

Mar 30, 2016

Georgia’s President Wants Security Guarantees for Eastern Partnership Countries

By Ashish Kumar Sen

Paris, Brussels terrorist attacks add to urgency, says Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili The terrorist attacks on Paris and Brussels show that there is an urgent need for “bigger security guarantees” for countries of the Eastern Partnership, Georgia’s President, Giorgi Margvelashvili, said at the Atlantic Council on March 30. “At the end of the day…are we […]

European Union International Organizations

UkraineAlert

Mar 30, 2016

Revealing Europe’s Best-Kept Secret

By Peter Dickinson and Vladislav Davidzon

Early April will see the closure of Ukraine Today, which had been the only full-time English language TV news service offering Ukrainian perspectives to international audiences. The channel will reportedly continue online, but the end of its broadcasting is a sobering development hinting at the difficulties of finding sufficient funding for major Ukrainian English-language media […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Mar 29, 2016

Shokin’s Revenge: Ukraine’s Odious Prosecutor General Fires Honest Deputy Before Parliament Sacks Him

By Anders Åslund

On March 29, the Ukrainian Rada finally approved the resignation of Ukraine’s disreputable Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. He was voted out with an overwhelming majority of 289 votes, including 114 of the 134 deputies of the Poroshenko Bloc. On February 16, Shokin was forced to submit his letter of resignation in connection with the failed […]

Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Mar 29, 2016

US Presidential Politics Play Poorly in Ukraine

By James Brooke

US President Barack Obama’s refusal to militarily defend Ukraine against Russian aggression has sent a chill halfway around the world to Odesa, the Black Sea port only 200 kilometers by warship from Crimea. In the April issue of The Atlantic, Obama says: “The fact is that Ukraine, which is a non-NATO country, is going to […]

Russia Ukraine

UkraineAlert

Mar 29, 2016

Sick of the Ukraine Crisis? Then Arm Ukraine

By Alexander J. Motyl

Building Up Ukraine’s Military is the Counterintuitive Solution to Peace Western policymakers who believe the Minsk accords would work if only Ukraine made the requisite constitutional and electoral concessions are missing a key point: that they, and Russia, forced Ukraine to make security its priority by violating the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances. Russia […]

Russia Ukraine

New Atlanticist

Mar 25, 2016

Slovyansk Recovers from Russian Occupation

By John E. Herbst

The fast train travels the nearly 700 kilometers from Kyiv to Slovyansk in just under six hours. It stops a few times before arriving at the train station in the suburbs of Slovyansk, the small city of 125,000 that Moscow’s agents seized and held for nearly three months shortly after its hybrid war in Ukraine’s […]

Russia Ukraine

Event Recap

Mar 24, 2016

A Threat to National Security

By Eurasia Center

“People in Russia Prefer not to talk about Kadyrov,” said Ilya Yashin, Deputy Chairman People’s Freedom Party (PARNAS), at the Atlantic Council on March 24, 2016. Mr. Yashin is seeking to break that taboo with his new report, “A Threat to National Security.” The report paints a terrifying portrait of the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov […]

Europe & Eurasia NATO

UkraineAlert

Mar 23, 2016

Ukraine and Turkey’s Newly Strengthened Relationship

By Hannah Thoburn

Turkey and Ukraine, including Crimea, control 71 percent of the Black Sea coast between the two of them. With Ukraine to the north and Turkey directly to the south, the two nations have long been collegial when working together on regional problems, but their reasonably friendly relationship has generally been subordinated to more pressing issues. […]

Europe & Eurasia Russia

UkraineAlert

Mar 23, 2016

Separatists Launch New “Passportization” Strategy in Eastern Ukraine

By Agnia Grigas

On March 16, the separatist leaders of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) began issuing their own passports in eastern Ukraine. The territory’s militant leader Aleksander Zakharchenko called the move “a very important step toward building statehood” that will serve to solidify and formalize the territory’s separatist status. Earlier, Moscow had planned to hand out […]

Russia Ukraine

The Eurasia Center’s mission is to promote policies that strengthen stability, democratic values, and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe in the West to the Caucasus, Russia, and Central Asia in the East.