Economy

On the eve of an EU-Ukraine summit on December 19, Ukraine’s relations with Brussels are deteriorating. EU officials have warned that the detention of opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko is damaging Kiev’s hopes of signing an Association Agreement by the end of the year. Meanwhile, Ukraine is considering relinquishing a 50%-share of its pipelines to Russia for cheaper gas. David Marples looks at the possible political direction Ukraine is headed for in 2012.

In the author's prescient May 2010 article there is the central observation that we are seeing a fundamental fault-line separating economic logic and political legitimacy. The author would have preferred to be less right. Today, saving democracy from the market means all democracies facing the market together.

20 years ago there was all to play for: the USSR was defunct and Russia was embarking on a bright future. But the much-needed economic reforms have had patchy success. Every time they took a step forward, the government lost both popularity and its nerve. Now the Kremlin no longer has the funds to keep people sweet and another financial crisis must be a real possibility, says Dmitri Travin

Privatisation was one of the beacon words of Yeltsin’s presidency, but, with the possible exception of housing, there has been no development of private property or attendant protected rights. Property in Russia still belongs to a small clique of top dogs and woe betide anyone who gets across them. How can Russia ever become prosperous or civilised? Andrei Zaostrovtsev despairs.

It is difficult to think back to a time when corruption was not endemic in Russia. It is now crippling the country, yet it is still low on the list of immediate concerns for most ordinary Russians. Why is there so little will to fight it, asks Pyotr Filippov?

For the last 20 years Russian attitudes to banks have been ambivalent. From no trust at all to feverish delight at the interest rates delivered by the oil boom and back to severe doubts during the recent crisis period. Competition needs to develop and the banks need to come out of the hands of the state, says Pavel Usanov

Dmitry Travin presents a new week-long series on openDemocracy Russia

Russia's ruling tandem have hung their economic policy high up on a mast: oil prices will hold, they say … and, well, even if they do drop, dwindling reserves should just about cover it. As ex-Finance Minister Kudrin realised, this is a foolish game that runs the risk of total catastrophe, writes Dmitry Travin.

A failed economic model and falling transit subsidies from Russia have propelled the Belarusian economy to the brink. The harsh reality of stopgap sales and emergency loans that awaits will only delay the inevitable, writes David Marples.

The resignation of Russia's finance minister Aleksey Kudrin is a much more significant event than the Putin-Medvedev reshuffle, says Dmitry Travin. Kudrin's cool foresight was the driving force behind Russia’s economic resurgence of the early 2000s, and the main reason why the country avoided total collapse during the later Credit Crunch.

Kinship ties are crucial in Pakistan, not only for gaining political legitimacy but for maintaining power through well-oiled patronage systems. These linkages restrict political parties from thinking beyond the ambit of their own community and political interests.

The shock of the recent steamer tragedy on the Volga and the huge loss of life all too quickly moved off the front pages, but the condition of the Russian river fleets needs to be kept in the public eye so as to avoid another such disaster, explains Oleg Pavlov

Increasingly, the idea of being a modern Russian means to be detached from Russia itself. The problem has long, Soviet roots, and the ruling tandem acknowledges there is a problem. But are they capable of reversing the trend, wonders Wayne Merry ...

President Yanukovych makes a show of trying to root out corruption, but a recent government deal to buy an oil rig, with $150 million in kickbacks for officials, has hit the headlines big time. Natalia Sedletska tried to find out more.

Effective opposition in Belarus has traditionally been limited by a limited sense of nationhood, a deeply controlled society and a social contract that exchanges rights for “stability”. The country’s deepening financial crisis undermines all three of these pillars. Could it be that the time for change has come, wonders Janek Lasocki?

Russia has taken seventeen years of WTO negotiations to get to a stage that most candidate countries reach after six. Now, with the country finally on the verge of joining, there is no sign of any consensus at the top, write Rihards Kols and Nicolae Geaman.

Ukraine is known as the breadbasket of Europe, but something very strange is going on in the grain market, writes Anna Babinets. A hitherto unknown company with dubious connections has been appointed state trading agent, the farmers and traders are being badly hit, and there is no prospect of clarity any time soon.

Ukraine has an energy strategy that sees significant new nuclear build. The European Investment Bank's "Trans-European Networks" initiative encourages this new build by increasing the capacity for power exports to the West

Modernisation is a task, not a problem. Russians must first want a modern country if it is to ever emerge. Alexander Auzan, one of Russia's foremost experts on modernisation, outlines the difficulties going forward.

Business is rarely just business in Russia, and the recent deal between Rosneft and BP is surely a case in point, says Mikhail Zakharov. The reason why it is happening is a combination of pragmatism, opportunism and national pride.