Futile Hope for the Dubious Summit in Astana. (cover story)

INTERNATIONAL cooperation on peace; RUSSIAN foreign relations, 1991-; UKRAINIAN foreign relations, 1991-; INTERNATIONAL relations

BELARUSReport Available; KAZAKHSTANReport Available

The article reports the efforts by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, France and Germany to schedule a summit in Astana, Kazakhstan on January 15, 2015 in order to resolve the apparent deadlock in armed fighting in eastern Ukraine. It claims that the Ukraine issue was tackled by Russia's Vladimir Putin with Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Kazakhstan's Nursultan Nazarbayev at the Eurasian Economic Union summit in 2014.