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Twenty years ago, the worst episode of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorny Karabakh occurred near the small town of Khojali, where more than 400 Azerbaijanis fleeing the town were killed by Armenian soldiers or paramilitary fighters.
The Obama administration faces conflicting interests in its relations with Georgia, especially as the United States tries to pursue the reset in its bilateral relationship with Russia.
As a permanent member of the UN Security Council and a nuclear power, Russia has substantial leverage in the post-Soviet space and is the EU's most important neighbor. However, in the coming decades Russia will face serious internal and international challenges.
The latest anti-government protest in Moscow on February 4 is further evidence that Putin's legitimacy is slowly eroding.
President Obama has praised Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili for his track record of reform and reaffirmed U.S. support for Georgia’s future membership in NATO, but he also hinted that Saakashvili should step down once his term ends.
Recent violence in Zhanaozen in December has forced Kazakhstan's authorities to rethink political, economic, and social policies. Only time will tell if the changes will have their desired effect, but it is the country's population that will make the ultimate judgment.
If Georgian President Saakashvili can leave the scene gracefully when his term ends and allow a more pluralistic politics to emerge in Georgia after him, he will set a good example to the rest of the former Soviet Union, Russia included.
Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin seem to have staked their futures on Putin’s victory in the first round of the presidential elections and are working to remove any possible opponents who might be able to appeal to Putin’s electoral base.
Russia faces serious economic challenges, including a demographic crisis, corruption, weak enforcement of property rights, and over-reliance on hydrocarbons. A combination of structural political and economic reforms is required to save the country from stagnation.
The election of a young reformer to the presidency in the breakaway region of Transnistria is a triumph for democracy, but it does not signal an irrevocable turn towards the West.