War in Ukraine

Is This the End of Mikheil Saakashvili in Ukraine?

By Melinda Haring

Today opposition leader Mikheil Saakashvili was deported to Poland. For months he has been leading protests outside of Ukraine’s parliament, urging President Petro Poroshenko to resign. The Saakashvili drama has been ongoing; last year he was stripped of his Ukrainian citizenship and then reentered the country illegally. In December, he was arrested and then broke […]

What Do Ukraine, Congo, Cuba, North Korea, Tajikistan, and Venezuela Have in Common?

By Maxim Martynyuk

Since 2014, when a democratic revolution triumphed in Ukraine, there have been two kinds of reports coming from my country: those about Ukrainians’ heroic resistance against Russian aggression, and those about the corruption that is destroying the country. The truth, of course, is more nuanced and mundane: Ukraine is gradually advancing, sometimes with two steps […]

When Politics Becomes an Olympic Sport

By Ashish Kumar Sen

No matter how deft the backflips or how swift the skaters, Korean unity will likely grab the spotlight (and news headlines) at the 2018 Winter Olympics which open in Pyeongchang, South Korea, on February 9. That is because athletes from North and South Korea will march together under a unified flag at the opening ceremony […]

The View from Inside a Donetsk Prison

By Matthew Kupfer

When Russian-led separatists seized control of Donetsk in 2014, Ihor Kozlovsky did what many residents of the city were doing: he stayed put. But unlike others, Kozlovsky was not a supporter of the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic” (DNR). In fact, he was a Ukrainian patriot, a professor and world-renowned expert of comparative religion at Donetsk […]

Donald Trump Is Not the Only One Who Likes a Grand Parade

By Ashish Kumar Sen

US President Donald J. Trump wants a military parade—a grand military parade. Trump, reportedly inspired by the Bastille Day parade he witnessed in Paris last summer, has asked the Pentagon to organize a parade down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington that [wait for it] tops the French. The reaction to Trump’s plan has ranged from skepticism […]

Why Election Reform Should Be a Top Priority Now

By Andrew Fink

Election reform in Ukraine is finally gaining some momentum. In December, parliament passed in the first reading draft law #3112-1, which creates an open list proportional election system and makes it easier for small parties to win seats in parliament. In addition, the president’s long-awaited list of candidates for the Central Election Commission has finally […]

Ukraine Headed for Perfect Storm of Demographic Decline

By Peter Dickinson

In January, the Czech government announced plans to double its annual quota for Ukrainian fast-track migrant workers from 9,600 to 19,600. Three years ago, the quota had been just 3,800. Prague’s message is clear—Ukrainian workers are not merely welcome but vital to the Czech Republic’s economy. The Czechs are not the only ones in Central […]

A Plan to Thwart Russian Meddling

US Rep. Will Hurd [R-TX] has a strategy to check Russian meddling in the midterm elections later this year and the US Department of Homeland Security would have a pivotal role in that plan. “We have a model that we should be thinking about when countering disinformation, and that’s CVE: Countering Violent Extremism,” said Hurd, […]