Europe & Eurasia

The Battle For Mariupol

By Askold Krushelnycky

MARIUPOL – Despite other setbacks, a good piece of news for Ukraine’s government last week was its re-assertion of control over the southern city of Mariupol, an industrial port in Donetsk province that had been taken over by Russian-backed militias fighting to separate the southeastern region of Donbas from Ukraine. The recapture of Mariupol dramatized […]

Reexamining Article 5: NATO’s Collective Defense in Times of Cyber Threats

By Klara Tothova Jordan, Huffington Post

Facing an adversary that does not shy away from including cyber tools in its playbook, the time has come for NATO to substitute strategic ambiguity for clarity in formulating how the collective defense pledge plays out in times of cyber threats.

Governing Under Siege

By Irene Chalupa

More than two months after Russian-backed separatist militias seized government buildings in the capital of Ukraine’s southeastern most province, its Kyiv-appointed governor, Iryna Veryhina, runs her administration, as best she can, from, well, a provincial city. Veryhina was thrust to the front lines of the battle between Russia and Ukraine last month, when Ukraine’s interim […]

NATO Says Russia Considers it an Opponent, Prepares Ukraine Aid

By Tracy Rucinski, Reuters

NATO is preparing measures to help Ukraine defend itself in its stand-off with Russia, and must adapt to the fact that Moscow now views it as an adversary, Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in an interview published on Sunday.

DIRECT TRANSLATION: Dispatch From A Depopulated Luhansk

By Irene Chalupa

The anti-terrorist campaign is encircling Luhansk ever tighter. The number of people remaining in the city is growing smaller, and those that remain keenly feel the foreshadowing of certain battles to come, writes Luhansk native Valentyn Torba in a blog post for the Ukrainian daily newspaper Den.

Conversation with Kazakh Deputy Foreign Minister Yerzhan Ashikbayev

On the morning of June 12th, the Atlantic Council held a private breakfast conversation with Yerzhan Ashikbayev, Deputy Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan. Minister Yerzhan was introduced by Ambassador John Herbst, director of the Atlantic Council’s Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center.

Obama’s Billion Dollar Initiative Important to Security of Central Europe

By Eric Auner, World Politics Review

In Warsaw, Obama also announced a $1 billion “European Reassurance Initiative” to support regional partnerships and fund U.S. presence in the region.