Yurii Raikhel

Russia’s adventure in Syria made it clear that the Kremlin’s Blitzkrieg wouldn’t work, with the Syrian government troops advancing slowly, sporadically, failing to regain control over areas cleared of insurgents. Worse still, the relationships within the Moscow-Tehran-Damascus...

Savchenko’s sentencing has made the issue of her return to Ukraine an urgent matter again. President Petro Poroshenko expressly stated his willingness to exchange her for Russian soldiers who are being tried in Kyiv. Ukrainian diplomatic department said that the exchange would take place by...

As usual, Russian President Vladimir Putin took part in the meeting of the Valdai International Debating Club. It was created in 2004 by the news agency RIA Novosti, when it was entrusted with promoting the interests and image of Russia in the global information space. In early 2014, the duty to...

The Arctic has long been a scene of confrontation with the West, becoming one back in the Soviet time. Now, the rivalry that had faded somewhat is restarting with renewed vigor. Meanwhile, new players come into the game, and the knot of problems is growing increasingly tight, acquiring also...

The military aspects of retreat from the airport, and absence of external support still require a detailed analysis by experts. At the moment one thing is clear: Ukraine’s military and strategic position has seriously worsened. It will result in a more complex diplomatic exposition. This was...

Russia’s federal TV channels showed with great pomp a march in Grozny, which the local boss Ramzan Kadyrov staged in protest against the publication of cartoons in the French magazine Charlie Hebdo. He claims the march gathered over a million people, while the police name a more modest figure...

The new round of the Minsk talks has been postponed again. Even though the postponement was announced by the separatists, they were acting on the Kremlin’s orders, with several reasons behind them, both technical and political.A hasty visit of President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko to Kyiv...

The South Stream epic is still on. As it was expected, Moscow’s fiasco in this endeavor has been declared a victory. Accordingly, Europe is called an aggrieved party – it will be hard up for fuel to heat its houses. It remains a puzzle what makes the Gazprom boss think so, taking...

Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko was discovered by professor of Kyiv University Klim Churyumov and researcher of the Institute of Astrophysics at the Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan Svetlana Gerasimenko in 1969.Comets are often called celestial travelers. This is due to the characteristics of...

The Customs Union, soon to be the  Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), is having problems again. This time it is a misunderstanding between Russia and Belarus. As the phrase goes, it is nothing personal, just business or, to be more exact, finances.The tax maneuver Russian is going to carry out...