The Russia Blog
The Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) today announced that no-one will be able to establish military bases on the territory of a CSTO member state without the express agreement of all other member states.
In practice, this is a setback for the United States, who will find it next to impossible to establish… Read the rest
Russia’s World Trade Organisation entry has been all but guaranteed after the WTO’s Working Party on Russian membership agreed the precise rules and obligations that Russia will have to meet as a member of the global trading body.
The news comes almost immediately after a customs and trade monitoring agreement between Russia and Georgia which… Read the rest
Why do only 10% of Ukrainians have internet access when more than 33% of their Belarussian neighbours have access?
I picked up some incoming traffic from Matthew Yglesias’ blog today. Wondering what was going on, I wondered over to his site, to find the following story about the Russian decision to shut down the flow of oil through Belarus:
All of Europe gets cut off from crude oil supplies, apparently.
His source is… Read the rest
It looks as though Russia’s neighbours have made a New Year’s resolution for 2007 – to demonstrate to Russia that they too can flex their energy muscles. In the past few days:
Just minutes before Gazprom implemented their threat to cut of gas supplies to Belarus, a deal was reached to secure gas deliveries until 2011.
Under the terms of the deal, Belarus will pay $100 per thousand cubic metres this year, but the price will steadily rise until it reaches around $250 per thousand cubic metres… Read the rest
It looks as if relations between Belarus and Russia are becoming increasingly strained, as reports come through that no agreement has been reached on the future of gas prices.
Although there has been no official announement yet on the outcome of the talks, Reuters are reporting that the talks went so badly that Lukashenko decided… Read the rest
Despite an international arms embargo affecting both government and rebel forces, it appears that military equipment from the Former Soviet Union is still managing to make its way into the Ivory Coast, the Telegraph reports:
Gen Fall, who commands 6,000 troops, said there was evidence to suggest that
Following last week’s meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, many observers – myself included – chose to make fun of the way in which Lukashenko related or, rather, did not relate to Putin’s pet labrador. But perhaps more was agreed at their meeting than we originally thought.. … Read the rest
It’s 3:40am and I can’t sleep. So, what better to do than read Publius Pundit?
Belarus is the latest country in Robert’s sights, and this is just a part of what he has to say:
Regardless of Russian assistance, I’m setting at maximum September 2006 the date of Belarus’ revolution, the
An opposition protest in Minsk yesterday was broken up by truncheon wielding police.
Showing he will not tolerate demonstrations like those that drove the presidents of Georgia, Ukraine and now Kyrgyzstan from power, [President] Lukashenko sent police into the streets Friday to disperse an estimated 1,000 protesters who chanted �Down with
Daniel Drezner discusses a Peter Savodnik article which compares the different approaches of the EU and the US to aid and democracy promotion in Belarus. The US directed much of its funding to groups opposed to the Belarussian government and promptly saw its aid programmes shut down. Meanwhile the EU, which subits all of… Read the rest
