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The Power Vertical

The Power Vertical is a blog and podcast for Russia wonks and Kremlin watchers by Brian Whitmore. It covers emerging and developing trends in Russian politics, shining a spotlight on the high-stakes power struggles, machinations, and clashing interests that shape Kremlin policy today.

Host and Eurasia Center Senior Fellow Brian Whitmore invites guest experts to deliver their insights and analysis in this weekly podcast. The Atlantic Council and the Charles T. McDowell Center for Global Studies at the University of Texas at Arlington co-sponsor this production.

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The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia and Central Asia in the East.

Content

Russian military exercise ZAPAD 2009

NATOSource

Jun 11, 2014

Russia Responds to Annual NATO Maneuvers with Surprise Exercise of First Strike Forces

By RT

The Baltic Sea and skies are getting crowded as Russia launches military training of its assault forces in the exclave of Kaliningrad in answer to the double war-games being conducted by joint NATO forces on the territory of the three Baltic States.

NATO Northern Europe
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, June 10, 2014

NATOSource

Jun 10, 2014

Rasmussen Outlines Strategic Transatlantic Priorities

By Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO

[H]istory has taught us that freedom does not come for free. We must work for it. Invest in it. And, if necessary, fight for it.

Economy & Business Energy & Environment
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov after meeting of NATO-Russia Council, December 4, 2009

NATOSource

Jun 10, 2014

Grushko Warns that Moscow May Withdraw from NATO-Russia Founding Act

By Voice of Russia

NATO was and is a leading military organization in the European-Atlantic region

NATO Russia
Norwegian artillery unit participating in Unified Vision exercise, May 25, 2014

NATOSource

Jun 10, 2014

Russia ‘Forced’ to Take ‘Military Measures’ If NATO Deploys More Troops in Eastern Allies

By Lidia Kelly and Gabriela Baczynska, Reuters

Russia would consider any further expansion of NATO forces near its borders a “demonstration of hostile intentions” and would take political and military measures to ensure its own security, a senior diplomat was quoted on Monday as saying.

NATO Russia
Armed men outside Sloviansk city council, April 14, 2014

NATOSource

Jun 9, 2014

‘Masterly’ Russian Operations in Ukraine Leave NATO One Step Behind

By Sam Jones, Financial Times

In more than a dozen interviews, planners, security officials and members of the intelligence community have spoken of Moscow with universal, if grudging, praise.

Intelligence NATO
Novaya Gazeta's website published a story and photo it said is of Sergei Zhdanovich, a Russian army veteran who went to fight alongside Ukraine's separatists, and was recently buried in his hometown near Moscow. (www.novayagazeta.ru)

New Atlanticist

Jun 9, 2014

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. […]

Russia Ukraine
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko will need to buid a partnership with Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk to advance the reforms he has promised to implement. (Photo: Kathrin Mobius/CC License)

New Atlanticist

Jun 9, 2014

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 […]

Russia Ukraine

In the News

Jun 8, 2014

Herbst: Don’t Forget Crimea

By John Herbst

Eurasia Center Director John Herbst cowrites for the New York Times on why the West must not forget about the Russian annexation of Crimea: 

Russia Ukraine
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomija, Jan. 23, 2012

NATOSource

Jun 6, 2014

Finland Will Require Referendum to Decide NATO Membership

By Defense News and Yle

From Gerard O’Dwyer, Defense News:  Finland’s electorate will ultimately decide whether Finland will join NATO.

NATO NATO Partnerships
Screenshots from the Ekho Moskvy website show Maria Turchenkova's photo of the "Cargo 200" truck carrying bodies of Russian fighters across the border from Ukraine to Russia.

New Atlanticist

Jun 5, 2014

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 […]

Russia Ukraine

Experts