In April, Russia’s Ministry of Defense ordered units to move from their permanent bases to positions close to the border with Ukraine, provoking widespread concern about the rising tensions between Moscow and Kyiv (see EDM, April 8). Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu later announced that these... MORE

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s planned visit to Washington in July is set to take place amidst the lowest level of trust with The White House in years. After Presidents Joseph Biden of the United States and Vladimir Putin of Russia held a bilateral summit in... MORE

On June 24, the Council of the European Union introduced so-called sectoral sanctions against Minsk. According to the well-informed Russian business daily Kommersant, despite their formidable appearance, the actual strength of these European sanctions is likely to fall short of expectations. Thus, when it comes... MORE

Russia and China are typically lumped together as the two new challengers to the role of Western countries in Africa. They are certainly that, but they are pursuing rather differing strategies and, thus, are virtually certain to find themselves at odds in the future. Moscow... MORE

United States President Joseph Biden’s European meetings with the G7 and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) earlier this month highlighted some of the extant policy differences between the US and its allies despite the positive PR assaults that sought to minimize them. One well-known... MORE

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, signed an agreement on June 15, 2021, that may have historic significance not only for the two signatory countries, but also for neighboring states (see EDM, June 23). “The Shusha Declaration,” named after the... MORE

The post-Geneva changes in Russia’s behavior are not quite going in the direction United States President Joseph Biden had indicated after inviting Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet and deescalate the dangerously high tensions between the two countries. Biden seems to have calculated that the... MORE

On April 19, during the presentation of a report compiled by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), United Nations Secretary General António Guterres stated that 2021 would become crucial for fighting climate change. To underscore the seriousness of the problem, he mentioned Verkhoyansk, in Russia’s northern... MORE

Although Russia’s Caspian Flotilla remains the dominant naval force on the Caspian, it is not the only one that matters anymore. All four other littoral states—Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan—have been building up their own naval presences, particularly since various intra-regional disputes over access to... MORE

A shooting skirmish or a deadly collision between Russian and Western warships or aircraft in the Black Sea would almost certainly cause a serious crisis, evolving into a military confrontation, a regional armed conflict and, perhaps eventually, a global war. Such a doomsday scenario appeared... MORE