The foreign ministers of Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova signed a memorandum of understanding on establishing cooperation on European integration in Kyiv on May 17, forming a trilateral alliance called “Association Trio.” The primary goal of the new alliance is to make a concerted move toward... MORE

Most Russians and many in the West remain captive to the notion that Belarus is not that different from Russia given that its people speak Russian and its authoritarian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka rivals, and in some cases even exceeds, his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in... MORE

Known as the “Pivot to Asia” and informally announced by Vladimir Putin in early 2012, Russia’s strategic (re)orientation to the Asian markets and China, in particular, seems to be failing to work as planned (Mn.ru, February 27, 2012). New evidence, broken down into five categories,... MORE

On May 24, a meeting of Polish and Turkish representatives at the highest level took place in Ankara. The two countries’ presidents, Andrzej Duda and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, were accompanied by ministers and officials from various sectors, including agriculture, culture, and defense. Five bilateral agreements were... MORE

On June 3, Belarusian TV showed an interview with Roman Protasevich, captured by Belarusian intelligence services after the forceful landing of the RyanAir aircraft en route from Athens to Vilnius (YouTube, June 3; EDM, May 24). This 96-minute-long interview was extracted from four-and-a-half-hour of footage.... MORE

The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) was launched in 1997 as a Russian equivalent to the Davos World Economic Forum, and for many years it provided a venue for Western business looking for opportunities to invest in Russia. But not anymore, and in the... MORE

On May 16, in the small town of Dmanisi, about 40 miles from the border with Azerbaijan, a fist fight at a local shop escalated into a violent brawl involving hundreds of Georgian mountain dwellers (Svans) and local ethnic Azerbaijanis wielding clubs, iron rods and... MORE

Despite the relative success of the Syrian regime in stopping the advance of the armed opposition (with help from the Russian expeditionary force and Iranian-backed Shia militias), the war-torn country still remains a magnet for foreign Islamic volunteers. Over 1,800 Dagestanis from the Russian Federation... MORE

On April 12, amid escalating tensions along the Ukrainian border, Ukrainian Defense Minister Andriy Taran expressed concern that “Crimea’s infrastructure is being prepared for potentially storing nuclear weapons” (Radio Svoboda, April 14). Even though Taran did not supply evidence for this claim, it is plausible... MORE

Following decades of wrangling and negotiations, Iran, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Russia and Turkmenistan signed the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea, in Aktau, on August 12, 2018. According to the domestic laws of the five littoral states of the Caspian Sea, the text... MORE