Fifteen years have passed since the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland joined the NATO military alliance, a decision the ex-Soviet satellites now see as fortuitous given today's Ukraine standoff between Russia and the West.
Ex-Soviet countries fearing spillover from the Ukraine crisis have asked NATO for land forces and other backup, potentially moving the region one step closer to a new Cold War.
Lithuania's president says that Russia, in an effort to maintain influence over territories that were once part of the Soviet Union, has set out to make the Baltic states "unreliable partners" for NATO and the European Union.
An ally of billionaire Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili on Monday basked in an overwhelming win at presidential polls in the ex-Soviet state to replace larger-than-life moderniser Mikheil Saakashvili after a decade in power.
Soviet Union's first President Mikhail Gorbachev is confident the West in 1980-1990s in fact lied to Russia when its leaders promised that NATO would not move in the eastern direction.
MOSCOW, Sept 01, 2014 (AFP) - Moscow and Kiev representatives will meet in Minsk Monday after Russian President Vladimir Putin raised the stakes in the Ukraine conflict by calling for statehood to be discussed for the restive east of the former Soviet state.