Section: The Economist (The United Kingdom)
On the border
NARVA, an Estonian town on the Russian border, is tired of hearing it is next. “There simply couldn’t be a repeat of Crimea here,” says Vladislav Ponjatovsky, head of a local trade union. Mr Ponjatovsky, an ethnic Russian, helped launch a Narva autonomy referendum in 1993. Now he would never consider it. Today’s Estonia offers higher...
Uncontrolled violence
ON THE night of February 27th 2014, Russian soldiers without insignias—soon to be known as “little green men”—seized the parliament of Crimea. It was the start of Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its war against Ukraine. Exactly a year later, Boris Nemtsov, a leader of Russia’s liberal opposition, was shot dead on a bridge by the...
Soaring hopes, dark fears
EUROPE means different things to different Ukrainians. One vision is on display at Mezhyhirya, the gaudy palace complex erected by Viktor Yanukovych, the ex-president, on the outskirts of Kiev. Just as he plundered the country he ruled for four years, here Mr Yanukovych ransacked the history of European design, housing himself in an oversized...
Defeat on the Elbe
All must have prizes THE German chancellor, Angela Merkel, may be the West’s de facto leader in the Ukraine crisis, a quasi-hegemon in the European Union and unassailably popular in opinion polls. But her centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has growing weaknesses, as Hamburg, one of Germany’s 16 federal states, showed on...
The fire that did not cease
Victory into defeat THE latest peace plan never had much chance. Shortly after signing it in Minsk, rebel leaders declared that Debaltseve, where several thousand Ukrainian troops were located, fell outside its terms. After the “ceasefire” started on February 15th, they continued their assault. By February 18th the flag of Novorossiya, the...
Hungary and Russia: The Viktor and Vladimir show
“JATSZOTER” (playground) proclaims HVG, a magazine, above a graphic of Hungary as a seesaw. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, is at one end, Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, at the other. It is a fitting image, given that Mr Putin is due in Budapest on February 17th, two weeks after Mrs Merkel. His visit will mostly be about renewing...
Fighting in Ukraine: Give war a chance
IN A hospital yard an old Humvee is surrounded by soldiers with long faces, wide eyes and hollow cheeks. The doors are shrapnel-ridden, the windows misty and the Ukrainian flag hangs in tatters. The flag, the men and the Humvee have the dazed look of those who have cheated death. Artemovsk, once a backwater known for a salt mine and wine, has...
Russia and Ukraine: Understanding Putin’s plans
IN A book of interviews published when he first became Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin told a story of his early scares: a rat he had cornered had nowhere to go and jumped out at him. Having pushed himself into a corner, Mr Putin is now playing out his childhood nightmare.After several months of relative quiet in Ukraine and at home, he...
War in Ukraine: Ceasefire no more
AMID the rubble of eastern Ukraine lie traces of life before the war: a pair of broken sunglasses, a stuffed pink unicorn, a roll of undeveloped film. In Dokuchaievsk, south of Donetsk, where a rocket recently ripped into an apartment block, a lonely dog, Virma, sits by the rubble, paws shaking. Virma’s owner, like the other 5,000 people...
War in Ukraine: Airport saga
No passengers for a while yet “AT THE beginning of the 1930s, the creators of this airport had no idea what a high-tech facility it would become,” said President Viktor Yanukovych at the opening in 2012 of Donetsk’s new international airport, named after the composer Sergei Prokofiev. He had no idea what a wreck it would become. After eight...
