UNITED NATIONS — The fate of Ukraine, one of Eastern Europe’s largest countries, hangs in the balance. On the one hand, ”spontaneous” political demonstrations and government building seizures by pro-Russian separatists, are bringing an air of deliberately planned disorder to the country’s eastern regions bordering Russia. On the other, rhetorical posturing by the United States […]
Special to WorldTribune.com Geostrategy-Direct.com WASHINGTON — Chechen fighters have been playing a major role in Syria. Opposition sources and Western analysts agreed that Saudi Arabia has facilitated the recruitment of more than 1,000 Islamist fighters from Russia’s autonomous Chechnya. They said the Chechens significantly bolstered their presence in the Sunni revolt in Syria since Riyad […]
Jeffrey T. Kuhner President Obama is on the verge of an historic triumph. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the American Left has been bitter about America’s victory in the Cold War. For decades, they preached moral equivalence between the United States and the Soviet Union. In their view, America was to blame for […]
Special to WorldTribune.com Gregory R. Copley, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs The change in the political balance in the Black Sea region which took place on March 18, 2014, with the re-accession of Crimea into Russia, was not profound in terms of any of the normal arbiters of strategic power. Nonetheless, it changed the equation not […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Miles Yu, Geostrategy-Direct.com Olexander Muzychko, the leader of a right-wing nationalist political group in Ukraine, was gunned down on March 24 in the western Ukrainian city of Rivne. Mr. Muzychko was best known in and outside Ukraine as an extreme nationalist with an anti-Russian penchant. Moscow tried to blame him as […]
John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — In a resounding rebuff to Russia, the UN General Assembly has reaffirmed Ukraine’s territorial integrity and has characterized the recent referendum which incorporated the Crimean peninsula into Russia as “invalid.” While President Vladimir Putin signed a treaty joining Crimea with Russia, the Kiev government has committed itself never to […]
Special to WorldTribune.com Gregory R. Copley, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs Crimea’s March 16, 2014, referendum to join Russia — there were only two options: join now, or join later — marked a significant watershed in the post-post-Cold War restructuring of the global strategic architecture. Not because it was so geopolitically surprising, but because it was […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Alexander Maistrovoy The West has left the forefront of history which is repeating itself in force and with dispatch throughout Eurasia. While condemning the actions of Russia in Crimea, John Kerry said that the time of empires is long gone; we live in the “21st century, and not in the 19th […]
John J. Metzler UNITED NATIONS — Less than a week after the spectacular closing ceremony of the Sochi Winter Olympics, Russian President Vladimir Putin decided for an encore and invaded the sovereignty of neighboring Ukraine. The chill winds of the Cold War have returned to Europe and the halls of diplomacy. Taking advantage of Ukraine’s […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com The Russian bear is definitely waking up after a long period of hibernation. Russian troops have taken over the Crimean peninsula, and it’s hard to believe they’re about to leave under a blitzkrieg of scolding by President Obama and a phalanx of editorialists and European leaders. The Russian […]