Section: European Voice (EU)
The missing billion
CHISINAU — Tension has been building in tiny Moldova over the last few months, ever since reports began to surface of $1 billion missing from three of the country’s leading banks, removed in the days leading up to the parliamentary elections last November. The amount, a huge sum for any country, was the equivalent of around 15 percent of...
Russia and central Europe meld on emissions goals
Russia and central Europe differ over the war in Ukraine, economic embargoes, the interpretation of history, gas exports and pipelines — but they are finding a common language when it comes to measuring emissions reductions in a way that allows them to claim steep greenhouse gas cuts without painful changes. The trick is to use a benchmark dating...
Noise on the eastern front
TALLINN — At Estonia’s Tapa military base, Lieutenant Colonel Aron Kalmus spends much of his time dealing with the rotation of US troops bringing tanks, armored personnel carriers and training skills to boost his country’s tiny army. The Baltic countries, with no proper air forces of their own, also rely on their NATO allies to patrol...
John Kerry dangles sanctions relief during trip to Russia
Secretary of State John Kerry said Tuesday that if Russia abides by the Minsk protocol setting a ceasefire in Ukraine, sanctions enacted by the United States and European Union against Russia can be lifted. Speaking at a press conference in Sochi beside his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Kerry said that regardless of...
Europe’s migration crisis: What comes next?
The EU is tackling its migration crisis on two major fronts, after roughly 1,800 people have died so far this year crossing the Mediterranean to Europe. Outside Brussels, foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini is pushing for a UN mandate to fight the deadly business of human traffickers in Libya, amid a pushback from Russia over the use of...
Kerry flies to Sochi to meet with Russia’s Putin
Secretary of State John Kerry will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other top officials on Tuesday in Sochi, Russia, the first such direct talks since tensions over Ukraine and other major global issues have escalated. The State Department said in a statement that Kerry and Putin will discuss a range of regional issues, including...
Poroshenko’s Four Ds: A program for a new Ukraine
Post-maidan Ukraine is at war. Not only against Russian invaders, but more generally against sovietism. This war has a military front in the East, but as important is the political, economic, social frontline in the rest of the country. Resisting the invaders and reforming the nation are the two fronts of a same fight: the struggle for the...
A Polish stunner
WARSAW — Polish voters delivered a surprise heard around the Continent in Sunday’s presidential elections. Incumbent Bronisław Komorowski not only failed to win outright in the first round but lost narrowly to Andrzej Duda of the opposition Law and Justice party, according to an exit poll conducted by IPSOS for Poland’s three largest...
The long arm of Vladimir Putin
In Ukraine, as in Chechnya and Georgia beforehand, Vladimir Putin operates through warfare, using bribery, fear and force to destroy his opponents. In the West, he operates through lawfare, using politically-motivated court cases to harass and paralyse individuals in his sights. The world has paid little attention to the Kremlin’s lawfare,...
Stalin’s new clothes
In the provincial city of Oryol, 230 miles from Moscow, preparations for the 70th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi forces on May 9, known as Victory Day in Russia, have been underway for more than two weeks. The streets are plastered with billboards depicting scenes from WWII, and Stalin’s face gleams from signs on boths sides of...
