Maxim Trudolyubov, Wilson Center
In the end, it was a favorable oil price, not a reformed economy, that proved crucial in funding Putin's way of making Russia great again: from Chechnya to Ossetia and Abkhazia, from Abkhazia to Crimea, from Crimea to Donbas, from Donbas to Syria, and from Syria to God knows where else.
Reva Goujon, Stratfor
As Americans commemorated their fallen soldiers this Memorial Day weekend, two European leaders met in the eastern forests of France to memorialize some of the darkest days of their nations' histories. Flanked by piles of French and German bones encased in the alcoves of the eerily militaristic Douaumont Ossuary, French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel embraced as they remembered the more than 300,000 soldiers slain in the agonizingly long 10-month... Читать дальше...
Konstantin Richter, Politico EU
Stranger than fiction: the German chancellor's precipitous rise and fall on migration.
Kaj Leers, RealClearWorld
The war of words between the ECB and Berlin shouldn't need to be a matter of either-or. While the ECB agrees that in the short term interest rates are depressed by the central bank's expansive monetary policy, in the long run smart public spending by the German government, such as in its truly ailing infrastructure, should lift all boats - in Germany and Europe, as people in other European countries will have more money in their pockets with which to buy German products... Читать дальше...