Eurasian Union Finalized Despite Russia's Economic Problems

Russia and four other ex-Soviet nations on Tuesday completed the creation of a new economic alliance intended to bolster their integration, but the ambitious grouping immediately showed signs of fracture as the leader of Belarus sharply criticized Moscow.

The Eurasian Economic Union, which includes Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, comes to existence on Jan. 1. In addition to free trade, it's to coordinate the members' financial systems and regulate their industrial and agricultural policies along with labor markets and transportation networks.

Russia had tried to encourage Ukraine to join, but its former pro-Moscow president was ousted in February following months of protests. Russia then annexed Ukraine's Black Sea Crimean Peninsula, and a pro-Russia mutiny has engulfed eastern Ukraine.

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Is the Russian Economy About to Meltdown? And is China Going to try to Save it?

Russian government is doing a bank bailout.

China offers a currency swap to stabilize ruble.

How Russia Plans on Countering the Color Revolutions

The May 2014 Moscow Conference on International Security (MCIS), sponsored by the Russian Ministry of Defense, was focused on the role of popular protest, and specifically color revolutions, in international security. The speakers, which included top Russian military and diplomatic officials such as Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, argued that color revolutions are a new form of warfare invented by Western governments seeking to remove independently-minded national governments in favor of ones controlled by the West. They argued that this was part of a global strategy to force foreign values on a range of nations around the world that refuse to accept U.S. hegemony and that Russia was a particular target of this strategy.

While the West considers color revolutions to be peaceful expressions of popular will opposing repressive authoritarian regimes, Russian officials argue that military force is an integral part of all aspects of color revolutions. Western governments start by using non-military tactics to change opposing governments through color revolutions that utilize the protest potential of the population to engineer peaceful regime change. But military force is concealed behind this effort. If the protest potential turns out to be insufficient, military force is then used openly to ensure regime change. This includes the use of external pressure on the regime in question to prevent the use of force to restore order, followed by the provision of military and economic assistance to rebel forces. If these measures are not sufficient, Western states organize a military operation to defeat government forces and allow the rebels to take power. Russian officials at the MCIS conference described color revolutions as a new technique of aggression pioneered by the United States and geared toward destroying a state from within by dividing its population. The advantage of this technique, compared to military intervention, is that it requires a relatively low expenditure of resources to achieve its goals.

Shoigu argued that this scheme has been used in a wide range of cases, including Serbia, Libya, and Syria—all cases where political interference by the West transitioned into military action. In 2014, the same scheme was followed in Ukraine, where anti-regime protests over several months transformed into a civil war, and in Venezuela, where the so-called democratic opposition is supposedly organized by the United States. While Western readers may find the lumping together of uprisings as disparate as those in Serbia in 2000, Syria in 2011, and Venezuela in 2014 hard to swallow, from the Russian point of view, they all share the common thread of occurring in countries that had governments that were opposed to the United States. Although uprisings in countries whose governments were close to the United States, such as Kyrgyzstan in 2010 and Egypt and Bahrain in 2011, are harder to explain, such inconsistencies do not appear to trouble the Russian government.

Furthermore, while Russian discussion of the destabilizing role of color revolutions usually portrays U.S. actions as taking place around the world, there is a clear perception that Russia is one of the main targets. This drives fear that unrest in the post-Soviet region may be a wedge for the United States to force regime change in Russia itself.

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What is the Eurasian Union for?

“IT IS like you’ve been dating a girl for a long time,” grins Pavel Andreev, an editor at a state-controlled broadcaster, Rossiya Segodnya, explaining why it has taken so long to press ahead with the Eurasian Union. “You’ve met the parents, you’ve spent a weekend with the families, and now you want to get engaged…Eurasian integration has been painfully slow, but it’s moving forward.”

Often seen as an artefact of Vladimir Putin’s nostalgia for the Soviet Union, the Eurasian Union has been largely ignored in the West. Yet it is in the margins of a Eurasian Union summit in Minsk next week that Mr Putin will meet the Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko. And it was the decision by Mr Poroshenko’s predecessor, Viktor Yanukovych, to embrace the project, rejecting a deal with the European Union, which touched off last winter’s protests in Kiev. That decision was not simply a capitulation to Russian empire-building, for this is not what Russia wants. Rather, says Dmitri Trenin of the Carnegie Moscow Centre, it chafes over the lack of a big group that gives it more standing with the EU.

The offices of the Eurasian Union, or the Eurasian Economic Commission as it is officially known, are in a swanky Moscow high-rise building festooned with gold letters. In the lobby, clocks showing the time in the union’s three capitals—Moscow, Minsk, and Astana—cluster together, leaving plenty of room for more. Besides Belarus and Kazakhstan, Russia is keen to add Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia’s president, Serzh Sargsyan, has said he will join. But Mr Poroshenko is just an observer.

Russian officials tout the union’s potential—trade could include everything from Belarus’s heavy machinery to Kazakhstani beef (see article). Trade within the union has grown by over 30% since 2011, they say. Yet Mr Trenin says the economic benefits of expansion are questionable. Discounting the initial burst after the removal of trade barriers in early 2011, annual trade growth has been more like 1.5%. Some officials say it will pick up, as it did with the EU. But the union’s own trade minister, Andrey Slepnev, does not think it will pull Russia’s economy out of stagnation.

With expectations so low, you might wonder what the Eurasian Union is for.

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Russian Air Force to Open Base in Baranovichi, Belarus

The Commander of the Air Force of the Russian Federation, Colonel General Viktor Bondarev said that Russia would open an air base in Belarus. The base will be deployed in the town of Baranovichi, RIA Novosti reports.

"We have never planned to deploy an air base in Lida. It will be in Baranovichi. We are currently waiting for the adequate decision from the intergovernmental commission," said Bondarev, answering journalists' questions about the plans of the Russian Air Force in Belarus.

The general confirmed that there will be Su-27 fighter jets deployed at the base.

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The Eurasian Union has Been Harmed by Putin's Adventures in Ukraine

t was never meant as a return to the Soviet Union. When Kazakhstan's president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, first called for a Eurasian Union just over 20 years ago, he envisaged a grouping of individual states with individual interests coming together for the economic benefit of one another. Nazarbayev, an iron-fisted autocrat and the only president an independent Kazakhstan has ever known, cited, seemingly without irony, "the will of the people to integration" as he tried to justify the reintegration of independent states the Soviet Union's demise had left behind.

On May 29, Nazarbayev witnessed this goal finally come to fruition. Sort of. Alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, Nazarbayev signed the founding treaty of the Eurasian Union (EEU) in Astana, paving the way for the transition from their current customs union to the full-fledged EEU on Jan. 1, 2015. Putin called the signing an event of "epoch-making significance."

But Putin has a way of mangling rhetoric and reality. While the EEU seeks to rejoin the post-Soviet space in economic agglomeration -- and has even received interested partners from Vietnam to Syria -- it stands far from the goal Nazarbayev once held, and even further from what irredentist Putin would hope.

Rather than launching a wholesale effort at post-Soviet reintegration, the EEU has rapidly morphed into something far more degraded -- and has faced substantive pushback from states watching Putin attempt to shift the EEU into another vehicle for Russia's revanchism, displayed so obviously in Crimea. Where the concerns on the EEU were originally economic -- the benefits are discernibly slanted toward Moscow -- events in Ukraine have displayed that the Kremlin's neo-imperialism is back. "The original purpose of the Eurasian Union was to become a dominant regional economic organization, with a legal architecture controlled by Moscow," said Alexander Cooley, a political science professor at Barnard College. But Crimea ended up illustrating that Putin would much rather have something to "effectively lock countries into Moscow's political and economic orbit."

Modeled on the European Union's economic constructs, the new union will represent a market of 170 million, and will boast a total GDP of nearly $3 trillion. The EEU will serve as the maturation of the current customs union shared by the three nations, and will allow further economic integration -- increased free movement of goods, streamlined trade regulation, unified macroeconomic policy -- between member states. And the EEU has potential to keep growing. If Putin somehow manages to woo the remaining post-Soviet (non-Baltic) nations, the EEU's market could jump to some 300 million members and just under $4 trillion in combined GDP.

But that swell is far from plausible.

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Is Putin's Eurasian Union Project Making Russia's Problems Worse?

The ceremony in Astana last Thursday (May 29) on signing the Eurasian Economic Union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan was a surprisingly business-like affair. The lack of fanfare reflected the mood of Kazakhstani President Nursultan Nazarbaev, who was not altogether pleased with how his old Eurasian idea has ultimately been implemented. Russia’s annexation of Crimea and harsh pressure on Ukraine increased his worries about sovereignty, so he made sure that the key political issues about common citizenship, coordinated foreign policy and joint border protection were excluded from the final text. Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka added his reservation to the idea of a common currency, but he secured a hefty package of Russian subsidies while lashing out against the liberal critics of the “alliance of dictators." Economists express doubt as to the value the integration project actually brings, pointing out that the volume of trade between the three states decreased by 14.5 percent in the first quarter of this year and that a financial union among them has been postponed beyond 2020.

These omissions from the initially ambitious draft apparently did not upset President Vladimir Putin, however, who praised the “historic importance” of the newly-agreed Union and promised everybody a spectacular rise in prosperity. For him, the significance of the long-promised deal was that his Eurasian project remained on track despite the heavy fall-out from the Ukrainian debacle. Moreover, coming just a week after Putin’s visit to Shanghai, the trilateral pact also proved that Russia did not accept the role of being a “raw material appendage” to China, but would continue to consolidate its own zone of economic dominance. Putin keeps trying to pull other states into this zone, though Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan was dismayed to hear in Astana that Azerbaijan’s breakaway territory of Karabakh would have to remain out of the common economic space.

This Eurasian alliance building is supposed to simultaneously convince China that Russia is a valuable partner and to disprove US President Barack Obama’s assertion that Russia is internationally isolated.

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Kazakhstan's Careful Tip-Toe Geopolitical Ballet

ASTANA — There is an old adage in Kazakhstan: "Happiness is multiple pipelines."

For the oil-and-gas rich Caspian country, keeping up good relations with a handful of customers -- namely, Russia, China, and the West -- at all times, without engaging too deeply with a single player, has been a guiding foreign policy principle since it gained independence in 1991. And until recently, this careful diplomatic balancing act seemed to be paying off: in the decades since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's population of 17 million people has grown into the most prosperous in Central Asia. Kazakhstan has built a glittering new capital, Astana, in the middle of the steppe, which will soon be home to the tallest skyscraper in the region. Earlier this year, Kazakhstan's autocratic ruler, Nursultan Nazarbayev, even considered removing the "stan" from the country's name to set it apart from its less fortunate neighbors: Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

Now, though, being a "stan" looks like the least of Nazarbayev's geopolitical worries. The president just signed an agreement with Russia and Belarus on May 29 to create the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), Vladimir Putin's brainchild and Russia's answer to the European Union. Putin's hope is that the EEU, a tariff-free trade union, will eventually draw in many of the states in Russia's near-abroad, tying the region's political and economic fortunes to the Kremlin. But behind the curtain of this shiny new free-trade zone, all is not well between Astana and Moscow.

Putin's recent Ukrainian adventures have set off alarm bells in this country, which is home to the largest proportion of ethnic Russians among the Central Asian former Soviet republics (they make up nearly a quarter of the population). Now, some worry that Putin may be playing a long game with Kazakhstan: drawing the country closer into Russia's orbit and deepening integration, then waiting for an episode of turmoil -- say, the sort that might unfold if the ailing Nazarbayev, 73, dies -- to assert greater control. Could Kazakhstan's multi-pronged foreign policy -- so lucrative for so long -- finally be faltering?

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"In the WT* Are They Thinking" Category: Kazakhstan to Test & Evaluate General Atomics Predator XP Drone

Kazakhstan has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with US unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) manufacturer General Atomics, paving the way for in-country evaluation of the General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc (GA-ASI) Predator XP.

A General Atomics spokesperson told IHS Jane's on 27 May that General Atomics Systems Integration, a subsidiary responsible for defence and aerospace services, had signed the MoU with Kazakhstan's state-owned defence industrial firm Kazakhstan Engineering (KE) to allow the firm to lease the Predator XP for testing and evaluation in Kazakhstan.

A timetable for the testing and evaluation period was not available.

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Ukraine: Stones for the Avalanche

The situation has not visibly progressed much.

The referendum was called a farce by the West.  Russia, of course, recognized it.  The LGM are not asking for the Russians to come in and annex them.   Russia has not, as of this writing, made a move.

Ukraine has stated it will not accept the referendum and calls it an illegal farce.  It has stated it will use force if necessary.

Russia has called for a dialog for the east and west.  This has been ignored...except...

The Russians are now stating they are cutting off the gas on June 3rd without payment.  Ukraine says they will not pay the new price.  Looks like the lights are going to go out.  or at least the gas is getting shut off.

Despite claims otherwise, the Russians have NOT pulled back their troops from the Ukrainian border whatsoever. 

There have been more clashes, but other than one near Slavyansk, there seems to have been little which is dramatic.

Europe has imposed more sanctions.  

The Mariupol police chief was NOT hung despite information stating so.  It was some other poor SOB.

These are but stones and stones start the avalanche.  And avalanches are devastating.

Putin Pushes Harder on Eurasian Union Integration With Ukraine Crisis

After offering a coldly efficient example in Ukraine of the use of hard power, Russia’s paramount leader Vladimir Putin is turning his attention to shoring up Moscow’s soft power capabilities, namely keeping his vision for Eurasian unification on track. There are signs, however, that his Eurasian aspirations will be more difficult to fulfill than his Crimean land-grab.

Putin on March 5 convened a snap summit in Moscow, also attended by Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbayev and Belarus’ Alexandr Lukashenko. The meeting’s aim was perhaps more propagandistic than substantive, designed mainly as a show of diplomatic support amid Western efforts to isolate and punish Russia for what critics see as its de facto occupation of the Crimean peninsula. At the same time, it provided Putin an opportunity to test his cohorts’ resolve to press ahead with integration. Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus are currently co-joined in a customs union.

Putin’s Eurasian integration vision is widely seen as an ideological alternative to the EU that some have dubbed “Soviet Union lite.” Ukraine had been considered a key cog in Putin’s planned system. And now, with the Euromaidan Revolution poised to redirect Ukraine toward the West, Moscow policy planners are scrambling to make sure Eurasian unification sticks to the Kremlin timetable. A key date from the Kremlin’s standpoint is May 1, by which time a pact formally creating the Eurasian Economic Union (EAU) is due to be signed. Current customs union members – Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus – are expected to form the EAU’s cornerstone. Armenia and Kyrgyzstan also have pledged to join, with other formerly Soviet states potentially to follow.

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Hat tip to Randy.

Window On Eurasia: Absorbing Ukraine Would be a Disaster for Russia

Vladimir Putin would view drawing Ukraine into a single economic and political arrangement with Russia as an enormous geopolitical achievement, but if he were to succeed initially, the Kremlin leader would be setting the stage for the demise of the Russian Federation itself, according to a Moscow commentator.

In an essay on the Forum-MSK.org portal yesterday, Yevgeny Ikhlov says that “the creation of a Russian-Ukrainian confederation would be the most grandiose foreign policy victory of [post-1991] Russia.” But “at the same time [it would be] a terrible national defeat of Ukraine” and ultimately for Russia too.

The Ukrainian economy would be reduced to being a fiefdom of Russian monopolies, Ukrainian politics “to a branch of the Kremlin,” and “Ukrainian culture to be a rudimentary part in an all-Russian mass culture.” It would be left insulted and injured, and it would become a far bigger problem than many in Moscow now realize, Ikhlov suggests.

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Ukraine Inches Closer to Eurasian Union Membership

The Ukrainian government approved Wednesday a programme of cooperation with former Soviet states that have joined the Customs Union, although rapprochement with the Russia-led bloc has fuelled continuing pro-Europe protests in Kiev.

The programme details cooperation with member states of the Customs Union up to 2020, though without "any mention of Ukraine's plans to join the Customs Union" until then, Viktor Suslov, Ukraine's representative in the integration process, told AFP.

Before the government approved it, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said the programme offers a "detailed plan of developing trade and economic relations ... in the industrial, auto, aerospace, and ship-building, agriculture, transportation, and tourism sectors."

Kiev in November backed out of a long-discussed Association Agreement with the European Union, which would have sealed closer cooperation with Europe, and instead signed a slew of strategic partnership deals with Moscow.

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Russia-Belarus-Kazahkstan Customs Union Ready for 2015 Launch

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on [Christmas Eve] the final pieces were in place for the 2015 launch of an economic union with Belarus and Kazakhstan that Moscow hopes can also be joined by Ukraine.

Putin promised following talks with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and Belarussian leader Alexander Lukashenko that the so-called Eurasian Economic Union would turn into a new source of growth for all involved.

The alliance would replace a much looser Eurasian Customs Union that Russia formed with the two ex-Soviet nations in an effort to build up a free trade rival to the 28-nation EU bloc.

"Government representatives of the troika (Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus) ... have developed the draft of the institutional part of the Eurasian Economic Union agreement," Putin said in televised remarks.

"This document determines the international legal status, organisational frameworks, the objectives and mechanisms of how the union will operate starting on January 1, 2015," Putin said.

Putin has made the creation of a post-Soviet economic union that could one day even be joined by nations such as Turkey and India the keystone project of his third Kremlin term.

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Putin Agrees to $15 Billion Bond Buy, Cut Natural Gas Buy by 30%

Russian President Vladimir Putin upped the stakes Tuesday in the battle over Ukraine's future, saying Moscow will buy $15 billion worth of Ukrainian government bonds and sharply cut the price of natural gas heading to its economically struggling neighbor.

The announcements came after Putin held talks in Moscow with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who is facing massive protests at home for his decision to shelve a pact with the European Union in favor of closer ties with Moscow.

Economic experts say Ukraine desperately needs to get at least $10 billion in the coming months to avoid bankruptcy.

While Putin sought to calm the protesters in Kiev by saying that he and Yanukovych didn't discuss the prospect of Ukraine joining the Russian-dominated Customs Union, the sweeping Kremlin agreements are likely to fuel the anger of demonstrators who want Ukraine to break from Russia's orbit and integrate with the 28-nation EU.

Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said after the Kremlin talks that Russia would purchase $15 billion in Ukraine's Eurobonds starting this month.

Putin emphasized that Russia's decision to buy the Ukrainian bonds wasn't contingent on that government freezing any social payments to its citizens — a clear jab at the International Monetary Fund, which has pushed Ukraine to reduce spending as a condition for providing a bailout loan.

Putin said the Russian state-controlled gas monopoly, Gazprom, will cut the price that Ukraine must pay for Russian gas deliveries to $268 per 1,000 cubic meters from the current level of about $400 per 1,000 cubic meters.

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Russia Ties More Strings to Yanukovich With Loan to be Announced

Russia signaled on Monday it was about to agree a loan deal with Ukraine to help its indebted neighbor stave off economic chaos and keep it in its former Soviet master's orbit.

In snowbound Kiev, the opposition went ahead with plans for another big rally for Tuesday against what they see as moves by President Viktor Yanukovich to sell out national interests to Russia after he backed away from a landmark deal with the European Union that would have shifted their country westwards.

An aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested a credit would be agreed at talks with Yanukovich in Moscow on Tuesday, and Ukraine's energy minister said a deal was also very probable on lower prices for Russian gas.

Yanukovich has turned to Moscow for money after spurning the chance of joining a free trade pact with the EU, despite the risk of protests against him swelling. He also visited China this month as he sought the best deal for his country.

"The situation in Ukraine is now such that without loans, from one side or another, they will simply fail to maintain economic stability," Andrei Belousov, an economic adviser to Putin, told Interfax news agency. "I do not rule out that, if there is a request, a credit could be provided (to Ukraine)."

Russia's Finance Ministry confirmed talks on a loan were under way. Ukraine's dollar bond prices rallied and debt insurance costs fell on the growing expectations Moscow could reach agreements with Kiev.

"I consider it a positive. A Russia deal is better for Ukraine in the short term as it is more likely Ukraine will get more financial support more quickly," said Charles Robertson, emerging markets economist at Renaissance Capital.

Investors have fretted that without international support, Ukraine will struggle to repay debt that falls due next year.

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Russia Atempts to Woo Ukraine Again

Russian President Vladimir Putin made a new attempt to woo Ukraine on Thursday after the European Union and United States stepped up efforts to pull Kiev out of its former Soviet master's orbit.

A day after European and U.S. officials held talks with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich in Kiev, Putin used a state of the nation address to tout the economic benefits of joining a customs union that he wants Ukraine to be part of.

Yanukovich - who is seeking the best possible deal for his country of 46 million as it tries to stave off bankruptcy - provoked street protests in Kiev by spurning the chance to sign a free-trade pact with the EU last month and saying he wanted to revive ties with Russia instead.

But he has hedged his bets by making no commitment to join the Moscow-led customs union and holding out the possibility that Kiev could still sign an association agreement that would deepen cooperation with the EU.

"Our integration project is based on equal rights and real economic interests," Putin said of the customs union with Belarus and Kazakhstan, which he wants to turn into a political and trading bloc to match the United States and China.

"I'm sure achieving Eurasian integration will only increase interest (in it) from our other neighbors, including from our Ukrainian partners."

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Embattled Yanukovich Does Political Dances, Criticized by Kravchuk

Ukraine's embattled President Viktor Yanukovych on Tuesday promised that some demonstrators arrested in the massive protests sweeping the capital will be released, part of a bid to defuse a political stand-off that is threatening his leadership.

Yanukovych also vowed to renew talks with the European Union on concluding a much-awaited trade and political agreement, after his refusal to sign the deal last month prompted the biggest protests since 2004's pro-democracy Orange Revolution, some drawing hundreds of thousands of people to Kiev's streets.

Yanukovych indicated he was still up to sign the deal at a summit in spring, but only if the EU can offer better financial terms.

"We want to achieve conditions which satisfy Ukraine, Ukrainian producers, the Ukrainian people," Yanukvoych said in a televised meeting with his three predecessors meant to find a solution to the standoff. "If we find understanding and if such compromises are reached, the signature will be put" on paper.

Three weeks of protests against Yanukovych's decision to align with Russia have grown larger and more vehement after police twice violently dispersed demonstrators. Tensions escalated even further Monday when armed law enforcement troops stormed the office of the top opposition party, breaking glasses and smashing doors.

The opposition is demanding the release of the roughly dozen protesters who remain in jail and calling for the government to be replaced by one committed to European integration. It was unclear whether Yanukovych's hedging offers would bring the sides closer together.

Yanukovych said that he has asked the prosecutor-general to ensure the release of some of the protesters — those who haven't committed grave crimes and who have children or families.

"Certainly, such people will be released," he said. Investigations of those freed would continue.

But Yanukovych appeared unreceptive to the criticism voiced by Leonid Kravchuk, Ukraine's first president after the country's independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, who said that beating protesters is unacceptable.

"Law enforcement must know that it is forbidden to beat people. And there can be no justification for anyone" who does so, a stern Kravchuk said, sitting beside Yanukovych and two other former leaders at a table decorated with blue and yellow flowers — the colors of the Ukrainian national flag.

Yanukovych insisted that both sides were guilty, smiling and laughing as he spoke.

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Russia Air Force Moves Su-27 Flanker Fighters to Base in Belarus

A Russian fighter jet unit has arrived at a Belarusian airbase where it will be stationed on alert duty as part of an integrated regional air defense network, Belarusian news agency BelaPAN reported.

Four Russian Air Force Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker fighter jets and technical personnel have been based at the Baranovichi airbase, BelaPAN said on Sunday.

The Russian Defense Ministry recently announced plans to deploy a fighter jet regiment in Belarus by 2015. The majority of the planes will be stationed at a future Russian airbase in Lida, a town in northwestern Belarus, near the Polish and Lithuanian borders.

The airbase will be Russia’s first on Belarusian territory in modern times and will consolidate defense cooperation under the auspices of the Union State of Russia and Belarus, defense officials in Moscow have said.

European defense officials have bristled at evidence of Russia’s increased military deployments close to NATO’s border, claiming it fuels tension with former Communist bloc countries in Central Europe and the Baltic States.

But Moscow has repeatedly said Russian-Belarus defense ties are a legitimate effort to ensure a solid defense for the countries’ Union State.

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...and the Ukrainian Euromaidan Protestors Hold Fast

Thousands of Ukrainian protesters huddled by braziers in their tented camp in the snowbound capital Kiev into Tuesday morning, in defiance of riot police who took up positions throughout the capital as a deadline to clear the streets expired.

In a second week of protests against President Viktor Yanukovich's decision to abandon a trade deal with the EU in favor of closer ties with Russia, demonstrators feared the arrival of riot police heralded a plan to crush them by force.

"We are expecting the break-up by police of peaceful demonstrators," Vitaly Klitschko, a heavyweight boxing champion who has emerged as the highest profile opposition leader, said. "If blood is spilled during this dispersing, this blood will be on the hands of the person who ordered it ... Yanukovich."

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