Paata Burchuladze is working Capitol Hill to raise awareness about Georgia's worries.

The fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh is like a chronic affliction that simmers down but never really stops. Escalations in the level of hostilities regularly arrive with melt-offs of the mountain snow. However, the eruption that began on April 2nd has flared up to levels unseen since the 1990s.

Putin is trying to burnish his credentials as an international tough guy in Syria, fighting ISIS, or at least appearing to do so. In reality, he seems to be directing bombs against dictator Bashar al-Assad's beleaguered opposition these days. He's doing it, because that's just about all he can do these days.

Luke Harding is an award-winning foreign correspondent from the Guardian, with extensive experience in conflict zones such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Georgia and Ukraine.

Whether this ceasefire or some future one proves durable, Ukraine must eventually make some very difficult decisions concerning its future. Above all, it must figure out a way of exiting the steel trap that has clamped down on its nether regions. The Crimean peninsula has already been sliced off. Should Ukraine sever another one of its own limbs in order to survive?