__The turmoil of 2014 was a timely reminder to businesses that they need to be prepared and have contingency plans for global conflict. The crisis in Ukraine brought Russia and the West to the brink of…
A year after the Maidan revolution of 2014, Ukraine is at a critical juncture. The conflict with Russia has been escalating. Estimates of casualties exceed 5,000, with some reports putting the number at…
A fragile ceasefire deal is just about holding in Ukraine, but hopes for its long-term success are not high. It is clear that the war for eastern Ukraine is far from over. And most ominously of all, it…
The Ukraine ceasefire agreement struck in Minsk will come as a relief to the increasingly desperate residents who live along the front lines in the Ukrainian Donbas. But even though the document was signed…
After all night talks in the Belarusian capital Minsk, the outcomes of the four party talks in the so-called Normandy format (Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany) have neither brought a major breakthrough…
This week our series on Russia’s relations with its neighbours reaches China, Moscow’s one-time great communist rival with whom it found much in common in the opening years of the 21st century. Neil Munro…
Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande’s push for peace in Moscow has helped fuel optimism about the prospects for Russia’s spluttering economy. On the morning of the meeting, the rouble had strengthened…
In recent weeks, eastern Ukraine’s Russian-backed rebels have won several military victories on the battlefield in the Ukrainian Donbas. First they captured the virtually destroyed Donetsk airport, then…
On January 24, pro-Russian rebel forces in eastern Ukraine launched missiles into Mariupol, a southern Ukrainian city south of Donetsk on the Sea of Azov. The attack killed 30 people and wounded 97, and…
Over the past few days, Ukraine has taken a significant turn for the worse. Fighting between rebels and government forces has intensified, the civilian death toll has increased, and the war of words between…
The deadly attack on a bus carrying civilians near Donetsk, killing at least 12 of them and wounding many more, comes in the wake of yet another round of failed talks among the foreign ministers of Russia…
The New Year always provides an opportunity for both introspection and speculation. So it seems a good time to consider what the big stories are likely to be this year. Some of the five major stories I…
25 years after the beginning of the Romanian Revolution. I am standing in the University Plaza in Bucharest. My memory is channeling echoes of gun shots and student resistance; the smell of perspiration…
The dramatic slide in the value of the rouble has claimed its first banking casualty. Trust Bank is being bailed out by the Russian Central Bank to the tune of US$530m. The emergency liquidity line is…
Vladimir Putin has delivered his annual press conference and at the top of the agenda was the Russian economy, reflecting that the turmoil buffeting the Russian rouble has reached critical levels. After…
Sanctions work. Russia’s problems may be manifold and closely related to the precipitous decline in the price of oil, but sanctions have played an important part in bringing Russia to its economic knees…
This week we have witnessed a plunge in the price of oil and the astonishing demise of the ruble. These events provide the basis for a great series of conspiracy theories, the type that readily find an…
Ten years ago, it was received wisdom in western academic, business and policy circles that Ukraine was an archetypal “captured state” – a state owned and run almost entirely by a small, insecure and fabulously…
The United States had just gone through a bruising election, but in Congress Democratic and Republican leaders gathered to unveil the bust of Vaclav Havel, the playwright and first post-Communist Czech…