Goodbye Post-Soviet Space?

... This much is clear from the unsettled conflicts in Donbass, Transnistria and Nagorno-Karabakh, and parallel political and legal situations in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Crimea. Russia has recognized the independence of the former autonomies, which Georgia and a number of Western countries consider to be occupation. As far as Russia is concerned, Crimea and Sevastopol are two constituent entities of the Russian Federation, while Ukraine and its Western partners see them as annexed Ukrainian territories. The question is not solely or largely about the interference of Moscow, Washington or Brussels, but of the inability of the new state elites to pursue national construction without ...