Ukraine has fallen into chaos. This seems to be the harsh reality after last two-day events. The umpteenth separatist action took place on Tuesday and it consisted in the occupation of prosecutor's office in Donetsk. Kiev made her move on Friday and launched a large-scale operation aiming to reconquer Slavyansk, a town belonging to Donetsk Oblast that has been under separatists control since early April and where OSCE observers were thought to be kept as hostages[1]. While the army was surrounding the city and trying to reach its centre (operation that has been impeded by civilians, which are openly supporting separatist forces), new clashes between pro-Russia and pro-Kiev supporters burst in Odessa: 42 people were killed and other 125 were injured[2].

What happened to the European willingness to intervene in Central African Republic to solve the humanitarian crisis? Hard to say, but it seems that things are not going as they were intended to. On the 10th of February the European Union Council authorised the peacekeeping military mission EUFOR RCA[1] but nothing concrete has been achieved yet.

Russia's role in international affairs has declined, at least temporarily, Moscow was de facto excluded from the Group of 8 industrialized powers .

The attempt by President Vladimir Putin of using the BRICS emerging powers in order to mitigate the isolation imposed by the West failed because of disputes with China and India about Tibet and Kashmir.

The European Union is ready to deploy a military mission (EUFOR RCA Bangui) in Central African Republic (CAR). The European Council unanimously reached the decision on the 20 of   January and the United Nation gave their approval eight days later.

The protests in Ukraine started at the end of November exactly November 21 when President Yanukovych has arbitrarily set aside a long-awaited trade agreement that would " depth " ties with the EU and called on the contrary to what the people wanted , greater support to Russia. This sparked a series of popular demonstrations pro EU have gradually increased in number and intensity.

French troops and African Union peacekeepers are currently failing in stemming violence episodes in Central African Republic (CAR), and that’s why, during 19-20 December European Council, Paris called the European Union to intervene, by force of arms and/or by budgetary support. The core of the French proposal is the creation of a multinational military force deployable within the African continent at the first signs of a crisis. Relying on such a political and military tool, if rightly planned, the EU will be able to skip the huge political and diplomatic procedure that usually foreruns a military operation. But being such a delicate matter, the whole debate has been postponed to the first 2014 European Council.  

Diplomatic tension between Russia and the Euro-Atlantic axis is increasing, and that is because of a certain number of short-range Iskander missiles (called SS-26 Stone in NATO code) have been deployed by Moscow in Kaliningrad (Russian enclave enclosed by Poland, Lithuania and the Baltic Sea) and along Estonian and Latvian borders. 

The energetic war between Russia and EU enriches of a new, precious tessera: few days ago, in fact, the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, and the managing director of Gazprom, Aleksej Miller, have established, in a meeting which took place in the magyar capital, that the building of the South Stream pipeline, sponsored by Gazprom itself and doomed to transport the russian natural gas from the shores of the Black Sea to the Western Europe (bypassing Ukraine), will go on withouth delays, with the opening of the construction sites in April 2015, as expected.

Putin and Pope Francis united in the defense of Christians in the world.

The two-day Italian Vladimir Putin is positioned as a real opportunity to enable new relations between Italy, Russia and the Holy See.

Civil war clouds are gathering above Central African Republic (CAR), a “lawless” country, where the number of clashes between Christians and Muslims is increasing, where armed groups have been accused of atrocities against civil population (including killings, burning villages and child soldiers conscription). That’s the alarm bell that was stressed by the United Nation in late November.