Jens Stoltenberg and Dalia Grybauskaite are not amused with Russian military activities in the Baltic.
Last weekend (November 21), Ukraine marked the first anniversary of the EuroMaidan—the public protests in Kyiv that lasted through the hard winter of discontent and brought down the corrupt regime of Viktor Yanukovych on February 21. As its war for state survival continues to rage, the country is in no mood for street festivities. Nevertheless, the EuroMaidan clearly still drives Ukraine’s policy, as was illustrated by the formation of a broad governing coalition pledging to restore the country’s territorial integrity and deepen its pro-Western orientation, including the goal of joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) (Gazeta.ru, November 21). United States Vice President Joe Biden was in Kyiv to express full support for reforms and to warn Russia against further violations of Ukraine’s sovereignty, which would be punished by new sanctions (Lenta.ru, November 21). This warning was reinforced by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who checked the deployment of new military assets in Lithuania and confirmed that the Alliance was carefully monitoring the movements of Russian troops and heavy weapons in eastern Ukraine (Newsru.com, November 21).
Read the article in Eurasia Daily Monitor, 24 November 2014.