Russia

DIRECT TRANSLATION: Meet the Ex-Convicts, Bullies, and Armed Bikers Who Helped Seize Crimea

By Irena Chalupa

Putin Secretly Decorates Russian Volunteers Who Backed Moscow’s Troops in Takeover Russian President Vladimir Putin bestowed state honors in recent months on more than 300 Russians who it declared had done an outstanding job in helping Russia’s seizure from Ukraine of the Crimean peninsula. But the happy news has been kept strangely quiet. The official […]

Disarm Russia’s Gas Weapon: Call Russia’s Bluff and Stem Ukraine’s Corruption

By Matthew J. Bryza

Europe Should Demand That Russia Sell Its Gas at One Basic Price for All EU States In a moment of friendly candor, one of Russia’s most senior diplomats once told me privately, “We Russian diplomats negotiate hard because we know we are weak.  When we have an issue on which we know we are strong, […]

German Defense Minister: ‘Russia Has Destroyed a Massive Amount of Trust’

SPIEGEL: So is the Ukraine crisis a case for defense policy?

Putin Has Exposed Divisions in Europe

By Matthew Kaminski, Wall Street Journal

To the east Russia is on the march. After a spike in violence over the weekend in eastern Ukraine, the Kremlin on Monday cut gas exports to the country, using an economic cudgel to go with the military one.

Is Germany’s Framework Nations Concept a ‘Substantial NATO Compromise?’

By Jan Techau, Carnegie Europe

Something is sprouting in Germany.

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.