What’s a U.S. ambassador to do when he wants to get his message out in a country that enjoys making America look bad, has little patience for Western values and tightly controls the media? Call him @McFaul, the tweeting ambassador. For Ambassador Michael McFaul, the unfiltered communication offered by social media means he can tweet U.S. policy, blog it and post it on Facebook, an alternative to the mostly hostile traditional media here.

Almost as soon as a Russian court convicted activist Alexei Navalny of embezzlement, on highly dubious grounds, in July 2013, U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul tweeted his disappointment at the “apparent political motivations in this trial.” Within minutes that comment echoed across Russia’s social media landscape, eventually generating nearly 1,000 retweets and getting picked up by numerous media outlets.

Judging by 2014's crowded election calendar, this will be a landmark year for democracy. The Economist estimates that an unprecedented 40 percent of the world’s population will have a chance to vote in national polls in 2014. We'll see races in populous countries such as Brazil, Indonesia, the United States, and, most notably, India, where 700 million people are expected to cast ballots in what Fareed Zakaria has called the “largest democratic process in human history.”

The European Union has probably never experienced anything like it before: Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s government pretended to negotiate an association agreement, only to back out at the last minute. EU leaders felt duped; in Moscow, however, the mood was celebratory.

Two suicide bombings in as many days have raised concerns that separatist militants have begun a terrorist campaign in Russia that could stretch into the Winter Olympics in February. Russian authorities and the International Olympic Committee insisted the site of the games, protected by layers of security, is completely safe.

Russia’s recent diplomatic successes in Syria and Iran, together with foreign-policy missteps by US President Barack Obama, have emboldened President Vladimir Putin in his drive to position Russia as capable of challenging American exceptionalism and Western universalism. But Putin’s recent address to Russia’s Federal Assembly was more a reflection of his resentment of Russia’s geopolitical marginalization than a battle cry from a rising empire.

Greenpeace activists released following an amnesty over their eye-catching protest in the Russian Arctic say they aren't giving up the fight. As members of the 30-strong Greenpeace crew arrested for protesting outside an oil rig arrived home from Russia, messages of defiance poured forth in interviews and statements released by local branches of the environmental group.

Anti-government protesters in Ukraine are demanding an immediate and independent investigation into a brutal gang attack on an opposition journalist. Police said on Wednesday that Tanya Chornovil was beaten and left in a ditch hours after publishing an article about politicians' assets. Chornovil, who writes for the opposition website Ukrainska Pravda, was attacked overnight on Tuesday outside the capital Kiev, police said in a written statement, citing the journalist.