Moscow May Soon End ‘Provisional Enforcement’ of 1990 Bering Strait Accord With US
China Brief Spotlight on Analysis: COVID-19
The Houthis’ War to Lose: The Battle for Marib
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan Likely to Sign Border Treaty Soon to Avoid Worse Problems
Nearly 30 years after the disintegration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), many former Soviet states are still struggling to deal with the delimitation and demarcation of their borders. In the cases involving... MORE
Kozak-Yermak Plan on Donbas: The Fine Print
The meeting of the Minsk-based Contact Group, held by videoconference on March 24–26, had been expected to officially create a new negotiating forum, named the Consultative Council—in fact, an accretion to the Minsk Contact Group... MORE
Kyiv Finds an Alibi to Step Back From Kozak-Yermak Plan on Donbas
The COVID-19 coronavirus emergency gives Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a non-political excuse for stepping back from the plan that his envoy, Andriy Yermak, accepted from Russian presidential envoy Dmitry Kozak on March 11 in the... MORE
Russian Defense Ministry Preparing for Worst Case COVID-19 Scenario
On March 24, President Vladimir Putin canceled a visit to St. Petersburg and went instead to the new Kommunarka medical facility on the outskirts of Moscow that was hastily organized as the main specialized COVID-19... MORE
The Outflow of Dagestanis to the Middle East Has Lasting Consequences
The Russian Southern District Military Court, in the city of Rostov-on-Don, recently sentenced Biysoltan Jamalov, a resident of Dagestan, to 12 years in prison on charges of terrorism and participation in the activities of an... MORE
Russia’s Defense Minister Shoigu, Coronavirus and Relentless Military Modernization
On March 20, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu led a meeting at the National Defense Management Center (Natsional’nogo Tsentra Upravleniya Oboronoy—NTsUO), in Moscow. Shoigu chaired the defense ministry board discussions at the NTsUO covering a... MORE
Russians Grapple With Oil Price War at a Time of Pandemic
The timing could not have been worse for Russia to provoke a spat with Saudi Arabia over oil production quotas in early March. Moscow’s decision to withdraw from the OPEC+ agreement restricting oil production in... MORE
Belarus’s Geopolitical Loneliness
The veil of uncertainty (see EDM, March 17) surrounding Belarus’s short- to medium-term socio-economic prospects continues to thicken. Alexander Chubrik, a reputable economist, writes about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse who have arrived in... MORE
Collateral Damage: Azerbaijan and Central Asia Are Caught in Russia’s Oil War
As the novel coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic continued to spread across the Eurasian landmass and beyond, the energy-producing states of the South Caucasus and Central Asia were dealt a separate, serious economic blow... MORE