Russia

Four Months after Ukraine-Russia Truce, Putin Can’t Risk Implementing It

By James Rupert

The War at Donetsk’s Airport is On—And Peace Talks Planned for This Week Are Off The intensified battle between Ukraine and Russia for the airport in Donetsk seems likely to be a fight over this month’s military message in the Donbas war. Russia’s army veterans, fighting as mercenaries, form the bulk of the anti-Ukraine force […]

Ukraine’s Dignified Warrior: Nadiya Savchenko Confronts the Kremlin

By Irena Chalupa

Paratrooper, Pilot, Parliamentarian, She Pressures Moscow with Hunger Strike in Prison In seven months since a Russian-backed militia in southeastern Ukraine captured Nadiya Savchenko, the Ukrainian paratrooper and pilot has become one of her country’s biggest icons in its war against the Russian invasion. Her captors spirited her illegally into Russia, held her in isolation, […]

Russian Troops Stationed Near Finnish Border as Putin Begins Move on Arctic

By Damien Sharkov, Newsweek

A detachment of about 800 servicemen from Russia’s Northern Fleet has been stationed in the Russian town of Alakurtti, Murmansk region, just 50km from the Finnish border, part of a large-scale expansion of Russian military facilities in the country’s northwest

Discussion on the Political and Security Prospects of Central Asia

By Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center

On Tuesday, January 13th, the Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center hosted an off-the-record, small breakfast discussion on Central Asia with Ambassador Miroslav Jenča, Special Representative of the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General and Head of the UN Regional Centre for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia, one of the leading experts on the region. The event was introduced […]

Rajan Menon: For Security, Ukraine Needs an Army, the West—and China

Author of New Book on Ukraine Conflict Urges Careful Priorities for Kyiv Atlantic Council Senior Fellow Rajan Menon, chairman of political science at the City College of New York, has just co-authored a new book, Conflict in Ukraine, with Eugene Rumer of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The book, to be published in March […]

SACEUR: NATO Looking at Beefing Up Baltic Exercises

By Wiktor Szary, Reuters

NATO’s top military commander, General Philip Breedlove, said on Tuesday the defense alliance was looking at beefing up its exercises in the Baltic Sea region in response to a surge in Russian military maneuvers there late last year.

NATO Military Commander: Fighting Has Resumed in Eastern Ukraine

By Henry Foy, Financial Times

Nato’s top general has noted a “fairly important uptick” in fighting in eastern Ukraine in recent days, casting doubts over whether the cease-fire between the Kiev government and Moscow-backed separatists can survive.

What Might the Kremlin’s Setback Bring in 2015?

By Elizabeth Pond

Economics Have Stalled Putin, But He Often Answers Reversals with Military Threats In the Ukraine crisis, soft economic power last month trumped hard military power for the first time. The threatened meltdown of the Russian economy could push Russian President Vladimir Putin to dial down his undeclared war on Ukraine in return for some easing […]

The Crisis in the West is Deeper than the Dismemberment of Ukraine

By Eliot Cohen, American Interest

It does not matter whether Khrushchev was wise in giving the Crimea to Ukraine in 1954, or how it came to be that eastern Ukraine is largely populated by native Russian speakers.

Britain Again Forced to Ask US For Help in Tracking ‘Russian Submarine’

By Victoria Ward, Telegraph

The Ministry of Defence has again been forced to call for US military assistance to help track a suspected Russian submarine spotted off the Scottish coast.