I fear that in the U.S., too few understand the political and psychological problems of the Russians after the collapse of the USSR, the phantom pains of millions, and the problems of a massive country whose capital is nearly as close to Washington as to Vladivostok.

Barack Obama's election may have prompted celebrations from Chicago to Nairobi. But in Tbilisi, it was disappointment that carried the day, with many Georgians ruefully contemplating what John McCain's defeat would mean for them.

The Bucharest summit was anything but the failure portrayed by some of the media. There was concrete progress in a number of crucial areas, including Afghanistan, NATO enlargement, and missile defense.

Days before the NATO summit in Bucharest began, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili rolled out a new peace initiative for breakaway Abkhazia.

Speaking today at NATO's summit in Bucharest, Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the alliance wants to welcome Ukraine and Georgia as members someday.

Interview with Jaroslaw Walesa, the member of parliament of Poland.

ALEKSANDR RAHR

On 2-3 December 2008, Brussels will host the meeting of the Foreign Ministers of NATO member states. On the agenda of the meeting there will be the issue of granting  the NATO Membership Action Plan to Georgia and Ukraine.

SERGEI ROGOV

Barack Obama is an outstanding policy-maker. He was considered to be a classical marginal politician, who had nothing to do with the U.S. political establishment and who was not taken seriously. But he felt that the U.S. voters expected changes.

ALEKSANDR RAHR

The USA, where the presidential election campaign goes full swing, tries to take the toughest possible line with Russia. In many respects that is why some American government officials seek to support Georgian leader Mikheil Saakashvili.

VLADIMIR CHIZHOV

The outcome of the extraordinary EU summit held on September 1 in Brussels was more or less predictable, both in terms of the views expressed by the EU member states and in terms of the EU Presidency conclusion.

GEORGETA POURCHOT

The current Russian military operation in Georgia marks the beginning of the end for Georgian sovereignty. The peace deal brokered by France contains the seeds of further chipping away at Georgian territory.

ANDREY MAKARYCHEV

South Ossetia and Georgia have been at war with each other since last week. The towns and cities came under fire, the reservists were mobilized. There are the killed and the wounded, and a lot of refugees.

VITALY PORTNIKOV

The holding of “Sea Breeze” military exercises and Ukraine’s joining NATO should be regarded as two different processes. Some people want to unite them, but Kyiv has not applied for the NATO membership yet. Ukraine has not received the NATO Membership Action Plan and, apparently, will not recieve it in December.

KONSTANTIN ZATULIN, ALEXANDER KONOVALOV, TATYANA PARKHALINA, OLES DONIY, LEONID KOZHARA, IVAN ZAETS, ANDREW KUCHINS

"Why do the Central and Eastern European countries seek to join NATO? For many of them it is a way to join the EU. Many countries took this as institutionalization of independence from Moscow. For many countries it was a way to return to Europe," Tatyana Parkhalina.

STEPHEN BLANK

In advance of NATO’s Bucharest summit Russia has decided to employ the traditional Soviet tactics of intimidation and blackmail to block NATO’s enlargement.

GEORGETA POURCHOT

The Bucharest NATO summit offers a significant possibility that NATO’s and Russia’s positions on a variety of issues will further diverge, marking the beginning of the end of this uneven relationship.

MERAB PACHULIA

Ambitions of the Georgian authorities to develop cooperation with NATO are largely supported by the population. There is a consensus on the benefits that the country could receive after acquiring membership of the Alliance, though contradictions remain.

ZAAL ANJAPARIDZE

Members of the “National Forum” and some other opposition parties fear that Georgia may join NATO without Abkhazia and South Ossetia, thus losing those territories for good.

GEORGETA POURCHOT

NATO’s most recent informal summit in Sophia underscores a decade and a half of balancing act between two former adversaries, the North Atlantic Alliance and Russia.

The typical criticism of the UK’s Foreign Office is the one eloquently expressed in John Le Carre’s The Constant Gardener - that they are pitiless practitioners of real-politik who care more about stability than idealism, and who only really work to protect the interests of British corporations, rather than British values. But on Russia, the Foreign Office seems to have erred on the other side.

Georgia has resolutely condemned Russia’s actions in Chechnya. Russia has severely criticized NATO actions towards Serbia. Later on the Georgian authorities tried to do the same thing in South Ossetia as the Russian authorities had done in Chechnya. Moscow decided to treat Georgia in the same way as NATO had treated Serbia.

The Russian foreign policy boringly runs around in circles: the row with Estonia on the historic past, the squabbles between Moscow and Kyiv over the Crimea and Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, the confrontation with Georgia because of its breakaway republics etc. After having made a full circle we are back to square one - another conflict with Georgia.

If NATO can bring Ukrainians rule of law and a decent living standard, it would already have justified its expansion. But judging by the way other Western reforms have been perverted in Ukraine, one couldn’t be blamed for having serious doubts. Probably with more candidness, Mr. Yushchenko pointed out that Ukraine can join any international organization that it likes.