More than five years after Russia annexed Crimea, with the war in eastern Ukraine grinding on, is a détente between Moscow and Kyiv finally within reach? It might have been tempting to think so with the summit this week in Paris between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin. It was only a few months ago, after all, that Putin and Zelensky had their first phone call, which led to Russia and Ukraine swapping dozens of prisoners and agreeing to consider reopening talks over the political future of the breakaway Donbas region. Yet despite some progress in Paris, [...]
Leaders from NATO member states gathered in the U.K. this week for a two-day meeting to celebrate the alliance’s 70th anniversary. U.S. President Donald Trump is taking credit for increased military spending on the part of some NATO members, a frequent point of contention between the U.S. and its trans-Atlantic allies. But the challenges facing the alliance go well beyond that issue, as some European leaders are asking much more fundamental questions about the very essence and structure of NATO itself. To discuss the challenges facing NATO, WPR’s Elliot Waldman is joined by Claudia Major, a security expert at the [...]
In mid-November, a vote of no confidence ousted the government of Moldovan Prime Minister Maia Sandu, who was subsequently replaced by Ion Chicu with the support of the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova, or PSRM. Until her ouster, Sandu’s ACUM bloc had governed in coalition with the Socialists, but their alliance had been a fragile one and its demise surprised few observers. In an email interview, Cristina Gherasimov—a research fellow at the Robert Bosch Center for Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia at the German Council on Foreign Relations, and an academy associate in the [...]
