Xi Jinping Boosts the Party’s Control and His Own Authority
Islamic State’s Easter Sunday Attacks in Sri Lanka: Assessing the Government’s Response Two Years On
An Assessment of the Russian Airborne Troops and Their Role on Tomorrow’s Battlefield
Azerbaijan Embarks on Construction of Nakhchivan Railway (Part Three)
*To Read Part One, Please Click Here *To Read Part Two, Please Click Here The Zangezur corridor between mainland Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan across southern Armenia, if re-opened, will carry greater economic significance for the connected... MORE
Ukraine Teams up With Qatar in the Gas Sector
On April 5, Ukraine’s acting minister of energy, Yuriy Vitrenko, and his Qatari counterpart, Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, signed a bilateral memorandum of understanding (MoU) on enhancing energy cooperation between the two countries (Mpe.kmu.gov.ua, April 5).... MORE
Moscow Forming First Robotic Military Units
Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has confirmed plans to create the country’s first robotic military unit. These plans draw on existing research and development (R&D) within the domestic defense industry, which has made advances in... MORE
Muted Georgian Response to Military Situation Around Ukraine
According to Georgian Foreign Minister David Zalkaliani, Tbilisi is ready to return Ambassador Teimuraz Sharashenidze to Kyiv. The diplomat was recalled from Ukraine last year, after former president Mikheil Saakashvili repeatedly called on his Georgian... MORE
Lukashenka Visits Azerbaijan After Belarus Protests and Karabakh War
Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka paid a two-day visit to Baku, Azerbaijan, over April 13–14. The trip had initially been scheduled for late 2020, but it was postponed due to two significant events (Azertag.az, April 14;... MORE
Russia Effectively Seizes Control of Sea of Azov, Threatening Ukraine
The international community has focused on Moscow’s buildup of forces on land adjoining Ukraine, concerned that such a concentration of Russian military power will be used against its neighbor (see EDM, April 8, 15, 19).... MORE
An Alarming Twist in Belarus’s Political Crisis
The socio-political conflict in Belarus has the potential to grow even more acute, even though street rallies have all but disappeared and the authorities have, for several months now, pursued a harsh counter-offensive. Those arrests... MORE
Macron, Merkel, Zelenskyy Meet to Defuse Russian War Scare
On April 16, in Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron hosted talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in person and with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who joined by video-link midway through the conversation. The three leaders’... MORE
Putin’s Power Play Foiled by Biden’s Punch-and-Placate Tactics
An extraordinary sequence of oscillating hostile and conciliatory steps between the United States and Russia was initiated by President Joseph Biden’s phone call to President Vladimir Putin last Tuesday (April 13) and is set to... MORE