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02/09/10 | BRZEZINSKI RECOGNIZED THE SITUATION ON THE CHESSBOARD AS NO-WIN

World mass-media republish and comment an interview of Zbigniew Brzezinski — American authority on global strategy — to the Polish newspaper "Polityka" that was published on the 19th of July. Well-known author of the "Great chessboard" concept, Brzezinski is an inspiration to the foreign policy of the Democratic U. S. presidents (Carter, Clinton and Obama). He believes our world to be at the threshold of some great changes, which can have a bad impact on America.

30/08/10 | VIEW FROM THE SPOT: Tracks of Serbian history are being erased in Kosovo

Kosovan Albanians will stand guard over Serbian cloister. And everyone’s wondering how are they are going to guard them. We’ll better try to answer such questions as why would they do that and what for.

27/08/10 | GEORGIA STRIKED AN ATTITUDE. Did Saakashvili appointed baker-girl to the Minister of Economic Affairs post because of her spectacular striptease performance?

28-year old Vera (according to other sources Veronica) has gone an eventful distance for her short lifetime. Having been born in Sukhumi, she used to live in Canada for a long time —her family immigrated from Abkhazia fleeing from the civil war. It isn’t known for sure what she has been doing; there is official version with a lot of disproving facts. But the result is clear: having met with the President Saakashvili at the Olympic Games in Vancouver as a member of local Georgian diaspora, she swiftly left for Tbilisi and has been even more swiftly appointed to the Minister of Economic Affairs and Sustainable Development post.

24/08/10 | EUROPEAN UTOPIA: One can do so much and no more

EU is an ideological rather than geopolitical project. It doesn’t pretend to be the stronghold of democracy. In this connection one might recall Herzen’s words that Europe would never be able to live up to its beliefs. Historically several EU countries had never met the liberal democratic criteria, they have to stand for nowadays.

22/08/10 | AMERICA, RUSSIA AND IRAN ARE LOCKED INTO AN UNEASY, BUT POTENTIALLY SUSTAINABLE STRATEGIC "TRIANGLE"

Though Russia might have a few more friends than just her Army and Navy, Iran certainly isn’t one of them. It’s just a lever to be used for extracting concessions from the US. At this time, supporting sanctions is good for Russia because the Americans are compromising on many spheres (e. g. on modernization, START, Georgia). However, a time may come when Russia performs volte face, e. g. if the US shows signs of reaching a reconciliation with Iran in order to refocus its energies on containing Russia, or ceases supporting Russia’s modernization drive.

18/08/10 | PARALLELISM BETWEEN SPAIN AND RUSSIA

Тhe situation in the ex-URSS sometimes remind me the situation in America after the independence of Spain, countries with a similar culture, civilization and language, separated by the politics.

13/08/10 | RUSSIA GAINED IN SOLITUDE THE SECOND WORLD WAR IN EUROPE

The commemoration of anniversary of the beginning of the second world war demonstrates the western disgrace again, the German invasion being compared to the Russian sacrifice and comparing the slaughter of Polish officials in Katyn (15 — 20.000 dead persons) and for political causes, with the sacrifice of million Russians, between 25 and 30 and of them nearly 20 million civil innocent persons, women and children mostly, again the propaganda acts without bearing in mind either the facts or the magnitude of the numbers.

10/08/10 | "OCCUPIED" OR "LIBERATED" TERRITORIES? The smoke and mirrors of caucasian semantics

Almost two decades of de facto independence became de iure in August 2008 with Russia’s recognition, and Russia’s military presence now provides the necessary bulwark for the freedom which the Abkhazians and South Ossetians secured at the cost of so many lives and damage inflicted on the infrastructure and economy of their countries. Nicaragua, Venezuela and Nauru have followed Russia’s lead, and the Abkhazians and South Ossetians are working hard to gain even wider diplomatic support, which they readily acknowledge will be a slow process, given the international community’s initial folly of precipitately recognising Georgia within its Soviet boundaries and that unsympathetic and largely ignorant community’s consequent perception of a need to go on mouthing support for an unsustainable territorial integrity — fine-sounding words but with absolutely no relevance to the facts on the ground.

07/08/10 | NO RUSSIAN IN THE LAND OF POTEMKIN. Russian-speakers continue to struggle with Ukraine’s language laws, despite the election of Viktor Yanukovich

A newcomer to Odessa, a city of 1 million people on the Black Sea coast of Ukraine, gets a strange feeling. Everyone in the street speaks Russian, but all the street signs, shop names and advertising are in Ukrainian. The two languages are so close that it does not require too much effort to guess the meaning of a sign, even if you only know one of the languages.

04/08/10 | HUMANIST DIALOG BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE UKRAINE: What do we need from each other?

Recently started dialog between Russia and the Ukraine still remains inferior: humanitarian sphere by no means make up the central subject of negotiation process. It seems that its participants lack general understanding of what do they need from each other. Some experts believe that the Ukraine is to reverse all of its Yushchenko-Timoshenko linguistic reforms in order to improve the situation. Still there are people who consider this subject to be a "Pandora’s box" that is better to be left alone for now. Whose estimates are more precise?