Category: Eurasia

Ukraine about to enter a ‘more difficult and dangerous phase’

     

What is happening in Ukraine shows that if there is sufficient courage and strength in numbers, people power can make a difference, says Carnegie analyst Judy Dempsey. The sheer pressure… Read more »

Georgia elections: polarized but ‘pluralistic, competitive and well-run’

     

The ruling Georgian Dream party won a decisive victory in weekend elections, Transitions Online reports: Georgian Dream captured about 48.6 percent of the vote, and the opposition UNM a distant second… Read more »

Power shifts in Putin’s Kremlin

     

In recent months, there have been significant shifts in the Kremlin’s usually static leadership structure. Many of Vladimir Putin’s long-time allies have been removed from power and replaced with younger… Read more »

Russia urged to find masterminds of 2006 Politkovskaya murder

     

Colleagues of slain Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya gathered Friday at the office of her paper Novaya Gazeta exactly 10 years after the crusading reporter was shot dead, AFP reports: A… Read more »

Moldova official says Kremlin meddling in presidential race

     

The speaker of Moldova’s parliament has accused Russia of meddling in the country’s politics ahead of a presidential election that could cement the former Soviet republic as a contender for… Read more »

Russia shows symptoms of old disease: totalitarianism

     

Long before the Russian state declared the Levada Center, Russia’s only reputable independent polling organization, to be a “foreign agent” in September, its director, Lev D. Gudkov (left), knew this… Read more »

Kyrgyzstan: democratic disillusion fuels radicalization

     

Kyrgyzstan models itself as Central Asia’s only parliamentary democracy, but multiple challenges threaten its stability, says a new report from the International Crisis Group: Divided ethnically between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks… Read more »

Azerbaijan: authoritarian constitutions send a signal

     

Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s president of 13 years, is often described as a “strongman” who enjoys near absolute power over the oil-rich nation on the Caspian Sea, The Financial Times reports:… Read more »

Russia’s ‘uncivil society’

     

On Wednesday evening, Anton Belikov, an artist and lecturer at Moscow’s Surikov Academy of Arts, walked through an exhibition of photographs documenting the war in eastern Ukraine, and threw paint… Read more »