Ukraine Crisis: Putin Will Soon Hang The Iron Curtain

Russia seeks to restore its former position in the world and has repeatedly shown under Putin that it has the ability to destabilize international order. While Russia lacks the military power to challenge the United States’ superiority, Europe does not underestimate its capabilities. Moscow’s use of arms sales and military engagement to build ties with Asia, Africa, Latin America, and especially the Middle East, and the mass export of fossil fuels to Europe have given Russia more leverage to shape power dynamics in various regions. Russia’s growing share of the natural gas market, previously a major player in the oil market, has further extended Russia’s influence but after the Corona pandemic, sanctions of Western countries as well as Putin’s failure to diversify the economy and can put him in trouble.

What Is Wrong With Europe’s Energy Policy?

Among EU countries, perhaps no issue is as divisive as “energy policy”. In Europe, every country now has its own strategy for fossil energy, nuclear energy and renewable energy to meet their national interest. From France, which gets more than 50 percent of its energy from nuclear fission, to Germany, which shuts down its nuclear power plants one after another, rely more and more on energy imported from Russia, contrary to the interest of other allies.

The Horn Of Africa States And Egypt – OpEd

The Past

The Horn of Africa States was from time immemorial a trading partner of Egypt up and until Mohamed Ali Pasha, which coincides with the opening of the Suez Canal by the renowned French Diplomat, Ferdinand de Lesseps. Mohamed Ali Pasha, the Albanian working for the Ottoman Empire who ruled Egypt on their behalf, was over ambitious and wanted to conquer the region sending expeditions, which finally left the region in 1875 after a short stay in Zeila, Berbera and Harar and the coastal ports of Eritrea today, Assab and Mussawa.

Making Poland’s Military Great Again – Analysis

Poland has declared its ambition to become the strongest military power in Central Europe. A NATO spending-leader already, Warsaw is eying a two-fold expansion of its armed forces, even though this will entail huge costs and defy demographic trends. Can it succeed?

Russian Energy Giant LUKOIL Makes Millions In Bulgaria But Pays Almost No Tax – Analysis

“The champion of our petrochemical industry.” So boasted Todor Zhivkov, then-communist leader of Bulgaria, when the country’s first oil refinery at Burgas on the Black Sea coast launched operations in 1963.

Nearly six decades later, Bulgaria’s planned economy may be long gone, but the so-called champion continues refining oil into gasoline and other petroleum products. It is not only the largest such energy enterprise in Bulgaria but the entire Balkans region.

Monsieur Fixit

The Perils of Macron’s Shuttle Diplomacy

Just two months before he stands for reelection, French President Emmanuel Macron has launched a bold effort to mediate between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the West over the standoff at the border with Ukraine. After meeting with Putin for five hours on February 7, Macron struck a hopeful tone, telling reporters that Putin had assured him that there would be “no degradation or escalation” of the crisis by Russia. But the following day, as Macron met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv before flying to Berlin to meet with his German and Polish counterparts, the Kremlin denied that Putin had made any specific commitment to Macron. From the start, it had been unlikely that these meetings would have much effect: Russia and Ukraine remain very far apart on the status of the Donbas and Ukraine’s sovereign right to decide its own future, and Russia has made de-escalation contingent on demands regarding NATO that many in the West view as unacceptable. Yet this bleak outlook didn’t discourage the French president: such long-odds shuttle diplomacy has been characteristic of Macron, who has made high-profile, if often exceedingly ambitious, diplomatic interventions a hallmark of his five years in office.

The Kremlin Wants To Be The West’s Mighty Antagonist, But It Cannot Even Control The Northern Caucasian Leaders At Its Rear

Even though the “almost imminent” war with Ukraine has been dominating the media in Russia, another important issue has been debated almost constantly: the recent actions of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a person with the unique status in Russia’s political elite of not being subject to any laws existing in the Russian Federation.

The U.S. Should Not Designate Nigeria’s IPOB a Terrorist Group

The U.S. government should not repeat the mistake made by the Nigerian government of designating the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) as a terrorist group.

In October, an American scholar argued in a Washington Times op-ed that the United States should designate the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), a secessionist group in Nigeria’s South East region, as a terrorist group. To the casual onlooker, this could seem logical: IPOB has long been proscribed as a terrorist group by Nigeria’s government, and it reportedly boasts a 50,000-strong army. But doing so would be a mistake that risks causing a massive human rights crisis in Nigeria and West Africa.

China’s Careful Dance Around the Ukraine Crisis

Reports out of Washington suggest worry over a Russia-China partnership that would facilitate Vladimir Putin’s presumed ambition to absorb Ukraine and undermine the NATO-based European security system. So let’s examine that relationship to assess the US concern.