As Russian and EU leaders met on 9-10 June in Nizhny Novgorod for the twice-yearly summit, avoiding the risk for another winter gas dispute with Ukraine was likely to be discussed between Brussels and Moscow. It’s no secret that Kiev wants to re-negotiate the terms of the gas formula agreed by Ukraine’s previous administration. However, earlier last week, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that Moscow will not change the gas agreement it has with Kiev. The problem for Ukraine is that the deal linked the gas price to the oil market and, based on the current oil price trend, it’s facing a possible price of $500 per 1,000 cubic meters in the fourth quarter, said Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Moscow’s Uralsib bank. The first quarter average price was $264.30. READ MORE

The presidents of Estonia and Lithuania met this weekend to discuss cyber and energy security. READ MORE

Created for the purely practical purpose of settling border disputes between China and the former Soviet republics in Central Asia, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization has evolved into a major regional and global political player since its founding 10 years ago. READ MORE

“It is certain that Poland is one of the most pro-American countries in Europe, only that the temperature of that pro-Americanism has fallen,” said Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland’s foreign minister, in an interview with the Rzeczpospolita newspaper this week. READ MORE

China and Russia deepened their strategic relationship on Thursday by vowing to support each other on core security issues. READ MORE

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) comprising China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan was officially created on June 15, 2001. At the time the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, while the secular dictators of the impoverished, weak and corrupt former Soviet Central Asian “Stan” states were panicking. A radical Islamist insurgency, supported by the Talibs and (or) Osama bin Laden then resident in Kabul, could engulf one or several “Stan” states, eventually destabilizing the entire region. The SCO was formed to promote security and economic cooperation to fight the terrorist threat and poverty in the “Stan” states and make them less susceptible to Islamist Salafi agitation. READ MORE

The German government announced it will shut down all of its nuclear power plants by 2022, calling the move "definite". READ MORE

During the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s recent “Jubilee” summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, the leaders of its six member states pledged to expand cooperation in politics, security, economy and cultural exchanges. What does this mean for American interests? READ MORE

For Kazakhstan May was full of economically and geopolitically significant developments worth exploring in the national, regional, and global contexts. The country hosted the 4th Economic Forum in Astana on May 3 – 4, designed to assess economic challenges facing the world economy and explore ways of shaping global economic development. It also held the forum of the Council of Foreign Investors, chaired by the Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, and the annual conference of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) during May 18 – 21. It further launched an investment forum in Astana. READ MORE

Russian Energy Minister, Sergei Shmatko, and Gazprom’s top hierarchy, along with their West-European business allies, advertised the South Stream project at a promotional event on May 25 in Brussels (Interfax, Euractiv, May 25, 26). The European Commission had agreed to be represented at this event, at Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s insistence, during the EU-Russia energy summit in February. The Russian side used the intervening months to prepare elaborate presentations of the project and deploy an unprecedented mass of lobbying power. It hoped through this all-out effort to demonstrate South Stream’s viability, neutralize legal objections to it within the European Union, and obtain EU financial backing for the South Stream project. Meanwhile, Putin and Shmatko had cast fresh doubts on this project by proposing a switch in the transportation mode, from pipeline to LNG, across the Black Sea. READ MORE