Moscow, which recently slammed Kyiv with a huge gas bill, said Monday (4 February) that an arrangement could be found. A Russian diplomat explained that the deal would not necessarily require Ukraine to join Moscow's proposed Customs Union with Belarus and Kazakhstan.  READ MORE

Relations between Russia and the European Union can’t be characterized as unclouded. At the moment, as Moscow is turning to Asia at the background of deepening crisis in Europe, the European Union has more acute dilemma: to build relations with Russia on the ground of values and principles or in the spirit of real policy. The last meeting of V.V.Putin with A. Merkel has already demonstrated that one shouldn’t expect sooner warming of lately worsened relations between the two poles of Eurasian geopolitical macro-region. Although objectively energy dependence of the EU, interest of Russia towards exchange of the latest technologies, common challenges in the sphere of security, the need of mutual strengthening of competitive ability, as well as cultural closeness push these two parts of big Eurasian space to cooperate, but still there has been no progress on many practical issues, such as signing of a new partnership treaty, third energy bag and visa relaxation for a long time.  READ MORE

The EU-Russia summit last week in Brussels seemed almost routine. Gas, visas, Syria, and human rights were all on an agenda that proved largely fruitless. Yet, something is different and no one seems to have noticed. Relations between the European Union and its biggest neighbor are changing fundamentally. READ MORE

The West is starting to change its views on Russia. In September, the European Parliament adopted a resolution criticizing how court decisions are often politically driven in Russia. In October, the European Parliament proposed that the  European Council come up with its own Magnitsky list. In November, the Magnitsky Act was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives and the German Bundestag approved a sharp resolution criticizing the Kremlin's crackdown on human rights and other elements of a democratic society. READ MORE