Russia

Weekend Violence in Ukraine Threatens Peace Efforts

Last week’s agreement in Geneva, meant to avert wider conflict in Ukraine, was faltering as the new week began. Pro-Moscow separatist gunmen show no sign of surrendering government buildings they have seized. The images below are from the cities of Donetsk and Slaviansk. A gunbattle in Slaviansk left an uncertain number dead.

NATO: ‘Fly-on-the-Wall’ Film Behind Vladimir Putin’s Rasmussen Jab

By Naftali Bendavid and Ellen Emmerentze, Wall Street Journal

A North Atlantic Treaty Organization spokeswoman blamed a “fly-on-the-wall documentary” as the source of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claim that Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen was using a Dictaphone while he was Danish prime minister to secretly record a meeting.

Putin’s Way of War and NATO’s Article Five

By Janine Davidson, Council on Foreign Relations

NATO countries have been reluctant to provide support to Ukraine’s military, who is not a member of the transatlantic alliance and therefore not entitled to a collective defensive response under NATO’s Article Five.

Stop Blaming NATO for Putin’s Provocations

By James Goldgeier, New Republic

The principal problem with the argument against NATO enlargement is that it never offers an alternative beyond leaving Europe frozen in time in 1989.