From ITAR-TASS:  The Russian Black Sea Fleet will be updated and improved to ensure the country's national security. Up to 20 new ships, submarines and boats will join it in the near future

On Monday, April 22, the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Relations Program hosted H.E. Valery Khoroshkovsky, former first deputy prime minister of Ukraine, for an off-the-record discussion of Ukraine’s trajectory towards the European community.

From RIA Novosti:  Warships from the six nations participating in the international Black Sea Naval Force (Blackseafor) exercise left the Bulgarian port of Varna for the active phase of the drills, the Russian Black Sea Fleet command said on Tuesday.

From Reuters:  President Vladimir Putin ordered the launch of large-scale Russian military exercises in the Black Sea region on Thursday

From Leon Aron, Foreign Affairs:  The first imperative of Russia's foreign policy consensus is maintaining the country's position as a nuclear superpower.

On March 5, the Atlantic Council’s Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center and Energy and Environment Program  held an off-the-record discussion on “The European Union’s External Energy Policy Priorities with Special Focus on Russia and Ukraine.”

Eurasia Center Assistant Director Anna Borshchevskaya recently wrote an article for the journal Caucasus International on "Ukraine's democratic backslide and its implications for relations with Russia

Former Polish President Aleksander Kwaśniewski declared Ukraine must choose between the West and Russia--and urged the United States and Europe to work to nudge them in our direction.