Ukraine’s Carpathian province (Zakarpattia Oblast) is comparable in certain key respects with Bessarabia in the Odesa province (see EDM, May 28). Zakarpattia is another outlying territory where Kyiv’s influence is weak, local power brokers well-entrenched, the infrastructure desolate, and ethnic minorities—in this case the local Hungarians—left largely to their own devices by an under-resourced central […]
Ukraine’s ethnic-Bulgarian minority is concentrated in the southwestern part of Ukraine’s Odesa province, an area often if somewhat inaccurately referenced as “Bessarabia.” It forms a triangle between the Dnister/Nistru River, the Danube Estuary and the Black Sea, adjacent to the Russian-controlled Transnistria, and bordering on Moldova and Romania. This triangular area holds pivotal strategic significance […]
Fugitive billionaire Vladimir Plahotniuc’s godson, Andrian Candu, is spearheading an operation to regain a share of power in Moldova, under the guise of a parliamentary coalition. Plahotniuc was Moldova’s de facto ruler, flanked by Candu (then-chairperson of the parliament), until the June 2019 regime change, when Plahotniuc fled the country. Despite his absence, Plahotniuc’s Democratic […]
Moscow’s continuing efforts to reduce the Black Sea to the status of a de facto Russian lake (see EDM, January 23) have forced Ukraine to seek increasingly inventive means of pushing back. Recently, some Ukrainian commentators have begun calling for a Timor Sea–type resolution for the territorial delimitation of the Black Sea that would involve […]
Russian government lies about the real coronavirus rate in the country has reached international agenda. It’s a bit awkward to realize I’ve been writing about Russia manipulating COVID-19 mortality data back when it wasn’t mainstream. Today, however, plenty of Western publications or think tanks have in their arsenal pieces about Russian government lies about the […]
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Between 1994 and 2015, the Kurdish vote in Turkey rose from 4.1% to 13.1%. A greying Turkey is facing a baby boom in Kurdistan: the Kurdish fertility rate, at 3.41, is a demographic weapon against the Turkish fertility rate of 2.09. These numbers suggest that Kurds could be the kingmakers in Turkey’s presidential […]
The plot is thickening in the enchanting story of Russia’s humanitarian aid to Italy. And the newly revealed context is becoming more and more embarrassing for Russia. The fact that Russian aid sent to Italy in the shape of military intelligence operatives and cargo, 80% of which is useless in fighting COVID-19, even paid for […]
In April 2015, Carnegie Europe published an article that analyzed the global footprint of the EU. Looking at the period of the second European Commission of former president José Manuel Barroso, which ran from February 2010¬ to October 2014, the article examined how the union deployed different foreign policy instruments across the world. Now, at […]
Plenty has been said and written about the Russian “assistance” to Italy in the framework of anti-coronavirus efforts. But, in fact, more and more details are surfacing around this pseudo-humanitarian mission, which is clearly designed to serve long-term objectives. The operation, led by Russia’s armed forces in the heart of Europe had initially raised many […]
Just the other day, describing the goals Russia is pursuing while providing its pseudo-humanitarian assistance to Italy, the USA, and Serbia, also imposing it on other countries under any pretext, I mentioned their intention to influence decisions on easing or lifting sanctions, especially to the accompaniment of the coronavirus spread, molding for itself the image […]