France’s Macron Claims Progress in Ukraine-Russia Crisis, but Kyiv Remains Skeptical

French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday there is an opportunity for further negotiations to de-escalate the crisis on the Ukraine-Russian border, after talks with his Ukrainian counterpart, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in Kyiv.

“Our desire for the following weeks and months is for the situation to stabilize and for us to be able to re-engage through new mechanisms of guarantees, a sustainable de-escalation,” Macron said Tuesday.

Xi meets Putin, stressing strategic coordination to better tackle external interference

Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday afternoon, stressing the further deepening of “back-to-back” strategic coordination in upholding international fairness and justice and adhering to the four consensuses in supporting each other’s sovereignty, security and development interests to better tackle external interference and regional threats, as they exchanged views on a series of major issues regarding global strategic security and stability.

Russia, China Claim United Front Against NATO Expansion

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping have called on the West to “abandon the ideologized approaches of the Cold War” as the two leaders showed their deepening “no limits” relationship amid a standoff between Moscow and the West over Ukraine.

As Russia menaces Ukraine, Crimea’s Tatars turn to Turkey

Complex ties stretch across centuries and continents, but Turkey’s affinity for its ethnic kin is taking a backseat to global relations with Russia.

Ilmi Umerov, a Crimean Tatar political leader, was lying on a hospital bed in Simferopol, the capital of Crimea in his pajamas when Russian secret service agents carted him off to the airport and put him on a plane to Ankara with fellow Crimean Tatar political detainee Ahtem Chigoz.

Russian invasion of Ukraine would spell more economic turbulence for Turkey

War would bring Turkey under intense pressure from its Western allies to join putative sanctions against Russia, a critical trading partner and supplier of natural gas.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Feb. 3 meeting with his counterpart Volodymr Zelensky in Ukraine yielded a string of accords aimed at deepening economic and military ties between Ankara and Kyiv and thereby significantly raised the stakes for both sides should Russia attack the former Soviet state.

Eurosceptic Alliance to Fight Creation of European Superstate

“There is a growing threat that seeks to transform the European Union into an ideologically charged federalist super-state; a corporation which disregards national identity and sovereignty, and therefore democracy, plurality and the interests of the citizens of the nations that form the Union. This drift endangers the Union itself by moving away from the Christian European ideals on which it was founded…. We should cooperate and join forces to protect Europe from enforced ideologies and anti-democratic drift that are leading to its downfall.” — Joint Statement, Madrid Summit, January 29, 2022.

A Sixth Coup in Africa? The West Needs to Up Its Game.

Crisis in Guinea-Bissau, coup in Burkina Faso reflect how ‘stabilization’ policies fall short.

The government of Guinea-Bissau says it survived an attempted coup d’état yesterday, just days after Burkina Faso suffered the fifth coup in nine months around the greater Sahel. These upheavals cement this African region as the most pronounced center of a global crisis: Poor and authoritarian governance is breeding extremism and transnational criminality, igniting violence and undermining efforts to build democracies. Following last year’s military power grabs in Chad, Mali, Guinea and Sudan, the new crises highlight widening risks to security — for the 135 million people of the Sahel region, and ultimately for Europe and the United States. They also point to changes needed in U.S. and international policies.

Taliban Are Collecting Revenue — But How Are They Spending It?

U.S. and other donors must engage Taliban on their finances so that aid doesn’t pay for costs already covered by Afghanistan’s government budget.

Although economic and humanitarian conditions in Afghanistan continue to deteriorate, the Taliban have taken some positive steps toward financial stability by publishing a fiscally responsible three-month budget and raising considerable amounts of domestic revenue — especially through customs duties, which have risen with a crackdown on corruption.

Is Iran trying to provoke Israel against Russian assets in Syria? – opinion

Iran is well aware of the changing dynamic, and it would like to advance its interests by creating a fissure between Israel and Russia.

Why would Iran want to incite Israel to strike Russian personnel or facilities in Syria? To answer that question, we need to understand the evolution of Iranian and Russian interests in Syria, which have diverged over time. Today’s post-war situation in Syria is very different from just a few years ago when Assad was hanging by a thread for his survival. At that time, Russian and Iranian interests aligned in their shared desire to defeat ISIS and prop up the Syrian dictator.