Vladimir Putin is right. The West has interfered massively in Ukraine. Let me explain. Last year, about 15 percent of Russian adults traveled outside the former Soviet Union. By contrast, about one third of Ukrainians between ages of 20 and 50 have traveled to Western Europe – to work. That is the difference between peeling off […]

After the Sochi Winter Olympics, Vladimir Putin has won a gold in the Occupation Olympics. They are being held in Crimea, just across the Black Sea from Sochi. Putin managed to seize Crimea without firing a shot. Not bad for taking over a population of 2 million people living on a peninsula slightly larger than […]

Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych has fled the nation’s capital, taking refuge in Crimea, a region where politicians increasingly call for annexation by Russia. Separately, two leading Russian politicians met with hundreds of politicians from Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine. At the meeting, one speaker called for “self-defense units” to block revolutionaries from Kyiv if they try to […]

the late 1940s, the mortality rate for Soviet troops fighting Ukrainian insurgents in Western Ukraine was higher than the mortality rate for Soviet troops fighting in Afghanistan in the 1980s. This little known fact, long suppressed by Soviet censors, helps to explain why, after two months of harsh winter weather, Ukrainians are still manning barricades […]

KYIV — To understand what is happening in Kyiv today, remember that Ukraine has a larger landmass in Europe than France, the largest nation of the European Union. From East to West, Ukraine is longer than Italy, from the Alps to the heel of the boot. In Northern Italy, people look to Switzerland and Germany. […]

KYIV — In August of last year, Mikhail Saakashivili was cruising to what looked like an easy election victory. Today, he travels Europe, cut loose from Georgian politics after one decade as President. What made the difference? Just before last year’s parliamentary elections, video clips circulated like wildfire on the Internet showing Georgian prison guards […]

German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck once observed that the Russian cavalry are “slow to saddle up, but ride fast.” In the case of Ukraine this week, the Kremlin’s cavalry cut off Ukraine’s move to the West last week, dealing the European Union its biggest defeat – and first geographical reversal — since the end of […]