Worldcrunch
-OpEd- MILAN — Whether the West likes it or not, an old question has returned on the global stage: whether or not to reconstitute the former G8 by inviting Russia back in. The decision rests with Italy, the current holder of the rotating presidency of the Group of Seven and the host, in May, of […]
WARSAW — More than 60 Ukrainians of Polish descent in the breakaway region of Donbass have asked Poland if they could be evacuated there, a request Warsaw has refused. Instead, it offered a modest aid package. “Many of us are elderly people. There are single mothers too. It’s not possible to live here any more. […]
Despite two peace agreements signed by Kiev and Moscow, fighting rages on along Ukraine’s eastern border with Russia.
KIEV — In real life, Nadiya Savchenko’s eyes are neither large nor blue. But on welcome posters splashed across Kiev Airport recently with the slogan #freesavchenko, the doctored photos of the just released air force pilot — who was captured by Russia and elevated to heroine status back home during her long imprisonment — played […]
Forced to abandon his Ukrainian companies because of corruption under the ousted pro-Russian president, Olexander Martynenko has risked it all on the front line.
The unlikely tale of how a young Colombian’s communist convictions led him to leave his family in Spain to fight with Ukraine’s Putin-backed separatist rebels.
Under cover of darkness, right-wing militias felled a massive Lenin statue in Sloviansk. Now there’s talk of selling it to finance reconstruction in the war-damaged city.
MOSCOW — Alexander Prokhanov loves to play the bad guy. But he’s no character actor. He is editor-in-chief, since its founding in 1993, of Zavtra (Tomorrow), a Russian ultra-nationalist newspaper that is fiercely anti-Western and anti-American, as well as clearly anti-Semitic and homophobic. In his mess of an office, Prokhanov, 77, invites us to sit […]
Italian PM Matteo Renzi has obtained Washington’s blessing to pursue its own dialogue with the Kremlin. Could Rome be the bridge to resolving the Ukraine crisis?
SIMFEROPOL — One year after Russia annexed Crimea, oyster farmer Sergey Koulik is exultant about both the future and the past. “Russian Crimea means new markets, more business and state funding,” he says. “Crimea’s return to the mother country is a good history lesson for all of Europe.” Koulik owns the only oyster farm in […]
Far from the murders and intrigue swirling at the Kremlin, or the war rumbling in Ukraine, most of Russia lives in a strange post-Soviet state of denial like one finds in the city of Yelets.
A new ceasefire, which has not been fully observed, should be in effect in eastern Ukraine. But the announcement of the creation of a military air force could bring dangerous escalation.
While Ukraine combat continues despite peace efforts, the Donbass region’s famously rugged coal miners have divided their loyalties: some keep working on Kiev’s behalf, others fleeing to the pro-Russian rebels.
The Ukraine ceasefire reached in Minsk represents a major diplomatic success for Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel, hopefully the first of many.
The risk is real of armed conflict between the West and Moscow on European soil. Searching for a way out means learning the lessons of Finland, and counting on leadership from France.
-OpEd- MOSCOW — The dials of the propaganda machine were never properly calibrated. Instead of talking about fighting Ukrainian nationalists, who like nationalists anywhere are dangerous and unsavory, it was simply Ukrainians and Ukraine that Russians were fighting. Less than a year later, this indiscriminate approach has had identifable results. In an October survey of […]
Fleeing war in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas, and even Crimea, some Ukrainians are finding life difficult in the capital.
-OpEd- BERLIN — As German military theorist Carl von Clausewitz once wrote, the aggressor is always peace-loving. He wants to take over our land, our people, our resources without firing a single shot. By this same logic, the defender is always the aggressor. This truth has seldom been better illustrated than by events in eastern […]
DNIPROPETROVSK – Last week, in this central Ukrainian city, a public farewell was bid to 21 soldiers, even if their names were never determined. The coffins, draped with Ukrainian flags, were brought to the the square between the Opera and Ballet Theaters on Karl Marx Avenue in Dnipropetrovsk, the country’s fourth-largest city. “The soldiers who […]
-OpEd- MOSCOW — Patriotic hysterics between Ukraine and Russia have given birth to a host of scathing labels — terms such a “fifth column” and “friends of the junta” — that state-owned television channels and some newspapers are employing with increasing zeal to identify Russia’s many “internal enemies.” The number of people targeted with these […]
Driven by the belief that Russia is the last bastion against liberal globalization, a small band of French fighters, some of them former military officers, have taken up arms against Ukraine.
The Russian President is again one step ahead of the U.S. and Europe, and many have begun to wonder if sanctions are even worth it. And then there is the question: where to after Ukraine?
Motivations and expectations of Russian volunteers in Eastern Ukraine are nothing like those who were sent to fight in Chechnya and Afghanistan. Maybe even more is at stake now.
BERLIN — For many in Ukraine the city of Enerhodar is known simply as “Atomic City.” It was founded a couple of decades ago to accommodate a power station, and the city with its 50,000 inhabitants in southeastern Ukraine is known today as one of the country’s main energy suppliers. The six reactor blocks of […]
-Analysis- PARIS — What can Europe do after Kiev’s desperate call for help in dealing with the invasion of Russian troops in eastern Ukraine, where separatists are gaining control? Let’s leave aside for the moment the hypothesis of military aid. European defense doesn’t exist. What’s more, we run the risk of escalation — an imbalance […]
Though Belarus is part of a Customs Union with Russia and Kazakhstan, it is cooling toward Moscow. As Minsk hosts Russia-Ukraine talks, much is at stake in the old Soviet orbit.
It isn’t just the Ukrainian military defending the country against pro-Russian militias in eastern Ukraine. Voluntary fighters, many of them intellectuals, have left their jobs to help the cause.
Russian travel agencies are going bankrupt as the Ukraine crisis clips the wings of tourism and keeps Russians at home. Many who have ventured abroad have found themselves stranded.
The Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, located on the Moldovan border with Ukraine, has relied on Russia for the past two decades. A perfect example of potential new burdens for Moscow.
Reactions are coming in after the U.S. and Europe doubled down on economic sanctions against an ever more defiant Moscow.
MAASTRICHT — The worst thing about it, says Marina Smirnova, is that people won’t tell her directly to her face what they think of her. When the 27-year-old Russian, a linguist, joins a discussion with colleagues at work about the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, and points out that responsibility for the tragedy has […]
Parallel portraits in the making of a civil war: one man is fighting for Kiev, the other is a Russian separatist.
KLAIPEDA — The entrance to this Lithuanian city’s port is a lesson in geopolitics. Klaipeda is the major transit hub for Russia on the Baltic Sea, but there’s no overlooking the huge semi-domes of the new terminals for LNG (liquefied natural gas) which Lithuania hopes will free the country from its energy-dependence on Moscow. There […]
KIEV — Representatives of the new Ukrainian government are convinced: It is time for Maidan Square to be free of tents. The only question is how to get rid of the protestors from the site that became the center of the pro-democracy movement. The police think Maidan should be cleared with force, as if it […]
Ukrainian Orthodox Church Metropolitan Volodymyr died on Saturday. The showdown between Kiev and Moscow makes picking his successor more than a religious event.
The new Ukrainian president’s attempt at peace has failed. What now?
MOSCOW — The funeral for the two young men was held on June 7 in a church in Kubinka, near Moscow. Aleksander Efremov and Alekei Yurin had gone to Donbas in the midst of the battle over the Donetsk airport in the eastern Ukrainian city. Neither came home alive. It was May 22 when 20-year-old […]
BRUSSELS — The Ukraine crisis and Russia’s aggressive behavior have hit NATO right between the eyes. Utterly caught off guard, the defense alliance has begun asking itself how it must react, both in the short-term actions, as well as bigger questions about NATO’s role for the future. The pressure to be decisive has a firm […]
From a once-contested region in the Russian Federation, anti-Kiev forces are spotted in the battleground eastern region of Ukraine. They are “more Russian than the Russians,” says one.
Maidan protesters remain in Independence Square, keeping guard despite the election of a new president. When will they leave? The vegetable gardens and henhouses suggest no time soon.