Belarus
Three Belarusian activists detained picketing presidential office
December 20, 2010Police in Minsk today detained three activists from the opposition Malady Front (Young Front) movement who were picketing the presidential office, RFE/RL's Belarus Service reports. Activists Uladzimer Yaromenak, Eduard Lobau, and Hanna Sharuba were...
Belarus opposition attacks Government building after election
December 20, 2010A massive demonstration against alleged vote rigging in Belarus' presidential election turned violent Sunday after protesters tried to storm a government building housing the country's Central Election Commission. Moving between Christmas trees and...
Lukashenko wins Belarus presidential election, mass protests follow
December 20, 2010Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko won a fourth 5-year term Monday, after a landslide election marred by a violent police crackdown on demonstrators and the arrest of opposition candidates. Electoral commission figures released early Monday show...
September 11, 2010By Andrei Munteanu The political scene of the Republic of Moldova (R.M.) is overcrowded. This could be explainable in a way, because in the soviet time the R.M. used to be considered the republic with the highest density of the population among all the...
‘Parade of Sovereignties’ after 1991 Putsch Marked Real End of USSR
August 19, 2010By Paul Goble It has long been customary to view the meeting of the presidents of the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Belarus as the date on which the Soviet Union died, but in fact, Sergey Markedonov argues, the three of them did not so much cause its...
Pre-Soviet past can become the basis of Belarusian national identity
July 21, 2010by Paul Goble In a week when Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich has argued that the Soviet period created the basis for Ukrainian statehood, a Moscow scholar suggests that Belarusians will remain divided by the Soviet inheritance but can be united...
Moscow wants to replace not only Saakashvili but also Lukashenka
May 27, 2010By Paul Goble That Moscow would like to see Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili replaced isn’t news to anyone but that it would like to have someone else in the place of his Belarusian counterpart Alyaksandr Lukashenka may come as a surprise...
Russia promotes its post-Soviet dominance
May 20, 2010By Sergei Blagov Russia pursues post-Soviet integration In yet another bid to strengthen cooperation with the “near abroad,” Moscow has hosted informal summit meetings of the major post-Soviet groupings. However, the gatherings also served...
Lukashenka turning Belarus into ‘a North Korea in the Center of Europe’
May 20, 2010By Paul Goble Faced with mounting economic difficulties at home and increasing isolation abroad, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka is transforming his country into “a North Korea in the center of Europe,” an effort that involves...
Former Kyrgyz president's supporters take over government buildings in South
May 15, 2010By Farangis Najibullah The interim government in Kyrgyzstan has sent the country’s acting defense minister to the southern city of Osh, where loyalists of ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiev are occupying provincial government buildings. Government...