As the situation in Ukraine rapidly spins out of control, various Western leaders have stepped up their verbal warnings to Russia. President Obama, in a telephone call with President Putin on Monday night…
Kiev is fighting to regain control over the eastern region of Ukraine, with troops acting to take back occupied buildings across the Donetsk region. The occupation of government buildings in cities over…
The ongoing standoff between Russia and Ukraine has exacerbated Europe’s vulnerability caused by its reliance on Russian gas. The situation has locked the two nations into a dispute over paying for gas…
Even as speculation continues about whether Russia’s recent foreign policy behaviour will result in a return to conflict in Europe, a war of words is already ongoing in Russia itself and it is one that…
Europe’s neighbourhood is in flames. To the south, the optimism provoked by the Arab spring quickly gave way to concern about successor regimes. To the east, all eyes are on Ukraine as some 40,000 Russian…
Michael Bradshaw, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick
Gazprom’s decision to hike the price of the gas it sells to Ukraine came as no surprise as it was flagged more than a month ago. At that time the company’s website showed the Russian prime minister, Dmitry…
Russian cinemas could soon face far more restriction than the fines they have been faced with after showing The Wolf of Wall Street. Lawmakers there are debating a new bill that would restrict the number…
The crisis between Russia and Ukraine reveals how dramatically Vladimir Putin’s nationalism has changed over the past 14 years. After he came to power in 2000, Putin preferred to refer to people in Russia…
Ukraine appears to be heading towards another crisis. Protests in the eastern cities of Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk have turned violent and pro-Russian protesters occupied government buildings, calling…
Guilhem Penent, Institut de Recherche Stratégique de l’Ecole Militaire (IRSEM)
Citing Russia’s “ongoing violations of Ukraine’s sovereign and territorial integrity,” NASA announced April 3 that it has cut all ties with the Russian Federation with the exception of the International…
The situation in Ukraine remains tense, yet the odds are that it will now stabilise. It is unlikely Russia will invade eastern Ukraine, both because it is unclear whether this was in the plans (if such…
NATO foreign ministers have agreed to suspend all cooperation with Russia and bolster their defence posture in the Baltic states and Poland. This move reflects the continuing perception of a Russian threat…
The current stand-off between Russia and Ukraine has left the European Union looking perhaps flatfooted and ineffectual. It is an unfair reflection of reality. The EU is not a military alliance and so…
As the curtain fell on the 2014 Nuclear Security Summit, the Dutch organisers must surely have experienced mixed emotions: relief that the summit was a success, yet frustration that media attention was…
Imagine you’d organised a much-anticipated party but because of something you’d said or done nobody turned up? To dismiss the party in the first place would smack of sour grapes but this pretty much captures…
Talks between US secretary of state John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in Paris, followed after a week of high-level diplomacy, including a phone call between presidents Obama and Putin…
In a historic speech to both houses of the Russian parliament on 18 March in support of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Vladimir Putin drew a bold comparison between the Crimean crisis and the recognition…
There seems to be a near-consensus that the West must “do something” to prevent instability in Ukraine and Russia’s other neighbours. But should that something include wider sanctions, targeting not just…
The invasion of Crimea and Russia’s military build-up on Ukraine’s Eastern borders have set a difficult task for Western diplomacy. Since Russia is a nuclear power, despite being militarily diminutive…
World War Two didn’t end in Ukraine in 1945. After the devastation of German occupation, which left the country in ruins and millions dead, Ukrainian nationalists continued to murder thousands of Jews…