Archive - 2004

Nick at A Fistful of Euros has an interesting article up about what the Ukraine crisis could mean for the EU a couple of decades from now. I have a feeling that the Ukrainian crisis may, when we look back at it from ten...

The Sunday Times today passes on an interesting rumour that Russia is going to offer sanctuary Ukraine’s outgoing President Leonid Kuchma should he be forced to flee .  The Russian president, Vladimir Putin...

And not only that – he wants India to have a veto vote, too. "I am convinced that permanent seats on the Security Council should have veto power, otherwise it would be a one-sided reform of the U.N.,"...

Uzbek President Islam Karimov, in complete contrast to his earlier comments on the subject, today announced that Russia’s meddling in Ukraine’s election was counterproductive: “Russia’s excessive...

Much of my focus has been on Ukraine recently, and coverage of Russia has suffered.  To balance things out somewhat, here is a brief roundup of what has been going on there for the past week or so.  I’m...

The BBC reports that the crisis in Ukraine is hitting the economy hard.  Foreign trade down $4 million per day, the country has lost $184 million in tax revenue, and the government has had to spend $400 million of...

Concerns are rising that Ukraine is about to split into two.  A lot of this is scaremongering, and actually things do look relatively calm on the streets, but the risk of conflict remains very real and I wonder if...

Reuters has an amateur video from Ukraine which seems to be showing electoral fraud: Yuschenko party officials being beaten up. People being bused from polling station to polling station in government vans. A Janitor...

Alex(ei) at Russian Dilettante points out that, whatever we may think, Russia does have legitimate interests in Ukraine: It’s bad that Putin’s team let Russia’s involvement be interpreted as...

(Note:  I’ve written more on Russia and Ukraine since this post – head to the home page for more). One of the wilder rumours flying around Ukraine right now is that Russian troops have been flown in and...