This article examines the persistence and conflict resolution potential of so-called protracted conflicts in the former Soviet Union, employing all four relevant case studies from the post-Soviet sphere and analyzes the capacity of the EU and OSCE to positively intervene in these conflicts. There currently exists a dearth of both theoretical and empirical research on post-Soviet on de facto states and on the place of the EU and OSCE as actor in the conflicts from which they have evolved. This article makes a modest attempt to address the existing lacunae by providing an analysis based primarily on semi-structured interviews with key personnel involved in the unrecognized/partially recognized states, in the states from which they have de facto seceded and with those in the EU and OSCE responsible for devising and/or implementing policies on the protracted conflicts. The article produces an analysis of intervention involving the EU and OSCE in four case studies, namely Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transnistria.