Russia

Russia this week rolled out the red carpet for Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. His visit included a rare invitation to address the State Duma, as well as a long meeting with president Putin. Raisi gave Putin the draft of "a document on strategic cooperation between our two countries" which he said can determine or at least clarify the co-operation between the two countries for the next two decades.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Kiev for talks with the Ukrainian leadership as fears increase of an imminent Russian invasion. In Brussels, European Union officials are bracing themselves for the biggest crisis on the European continent since the war in Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. There are still some hopes that Russia will de-escalate the situation, but most observers think this is now unlikely and that some sort of aggression - even if not an all-out invasion - is imminent.

In essence, European standards in relation to the status and operation of the Ukraine National Bar Association have been in place for more than nine years, writes Lydia Izovitova. This is a truly landmark contribution to the development of Ukraine as a state governed by law. This important achievement turns the constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens into real opportunities, and provides a mechanism for their protection, primarily from the encroachments by the State.

NATO and the European Union led strong condemnation after Government websites of various Ukrainian ministries were hacked on Thursday evening (13 January). The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported this on Friday. According to Ukraine's Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Oleg Nikolenko, it is too soon to draw conclusions about who could have been behind the attacks. However it is widely suspected that Russia was behind the attacks.

Speaking at a press conference after the meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussles, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who chaired the meeting, said: “This was not an easy discussion, but that is exactly why it was so important.” He noted that NATO Allies are ready to meet again with Russia to discuss a number of topics in greater detail and to put concrete proposals on the table. “There are opportunities for constructive engagement which should not be missed, in the interest of security in Europe,” he said.

NATO Secretary-General, Jens Stoltenberg, warned that the buildup of Russian military forces and equipment along the Ukrainian border is continuing and that Russia has failed to respond to international appeals and pressure for de-escalation in recent weeks. Stoltenberg was speaking after an extraordinary virtual meeting with all NATO Ministers of Foreign Affairs, held on Friday, 7 January.

As an uneasy calm returns to Kazakhstan, it seems that once again, the only beneficiary from another crisis in the post-Soviet space has been Russian President Vladimir Putin, writes Maximiliaan van Lange in this op-ed for commonspace.eu. Putin’s decision to quickly deploy airborne troops as part of a "peacekeeping force" to support the Kazakh regime in controlling the turmoil surprised even some Russian commentators who have called it inappropriate. But by its actions, Moscow is sending a message that it will not tolerate turmoil in former Soviet states. With this step, Russia has considerably strengthened its position in Kazakhstan and nips in the bud the risk of a domino effect in Central Asia