The border crisis between Poland and Belarus is more complex than a dispute between two sovereign nations. The extension of the EU border into the former Warsaw Pack area and towards the former border of the Soviet Union was always a source of tension as Poland was seen as a barrier to large armies […]
The history and politics of post-Soviet Belarus and Ukraine are very different. The current Belarusian transformation could be leading to results similar to those of the 2018 Velvet Revolution in Armenia, rather than to those of the 2013–2014 Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine. Yet, Moscow’s pathological imperialism towards Russia’s Eastern Slavic “brother nations” may mean […]
As the other great power which borders North Korea, Russia offers the U.S. a tricky avenue, but avenue nonetheless, to resolve the DPRK situation peacefully.
Economic dependence and shared cultures and borders make it nearly impossible for the former Soviet republics to break ties with the Kremlin without shooting themselves in the foot.
Near the Lithuanian border is the site of Belarus’ newest nuclear reactor, due to be completed in 2018 with opaque Russian funding.
As President Obama clashes with Congress over spending authorizations and debt ceilings to keep funds flowing outward from the U.S. government, his counterpart in Moscow is celebrating a victory that has brought lawmakers’ own money flowing back into Russia. Six weeks ago, just as Washington’s budget battles began heating up yet again, Russian lawmakers […]
While U.S. voters grumble about Congressional deadlock and lack of presidential alternatives, we often forget how good we have it. A slow thaw from autocracy in former Soviet states since 1991 has uncovered various national specimens, from reformer to recidivist. Observers have watched with increasing pessimism as jailed and beaten opposition candidates, single-party access to […]
Twenty five years separates us from the worst nuclear disaster in the history of mankind. I recently wrote about the 50th anniversary of human spaceflight and realized that a mere 25 years also separated April 1986 from Gagarin’s first human spaceflight in April 1961. On an early Saturday morning in April of 1986 at 1:23 […]
In January 2011, Uzbekistan’s president Islam Karimov made a controversial visit to Brussels and met with both E.U. and NATO officials creating somewhat of an uproar among human rights activists. His European visit drew attention and sharp criticism towards renewed Western engagement with a state that violates human rights and personal freedoms, remains corrupt, brutally […]
Among other things, 2010 marked a number of national elections gone wrong. From Guinea to Haiti, Rwanda to the Philippines, Madagascar, Burundi and Belarus to name just a few, elections that were fair, free, non-violent and undisputed have been difficult to find this past year. Even elections in the US and UK took on more […]
Yesterday, President Hugo Chávez continued his travels overseas, spending the day in Russia. During his time there he announced that Venezuela will recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states. A brief war with between Russia and Georgia in August 2008 led to the separation of these two regions. More information is available in today’s […]
President Hugo Chávez is on a weeklong trip overseas, to strengthen alliances in “the fight against imperialism”. His itinerary includes stops in Libya, Syria, Iran, Algeria, Belarus, and Russia. Freedom House, a US-based non-profit (and declaredly non-partisan) publishes “Freedom in the World, the annual survey of global political rights and civil liberties”. It ranked each […]
The European Union plans to announce today that it sees possible disruptions for its gas supplies from Russia via Ukraine, a liklihood we identified earlier this year. What’s worse, Gazprom is now demanding $230 in debt payments from Belarus, another key gas transit route to western Europe. The payments from Belarus may stem from a […]