The Kremlin’s representative to negotiations over Russia’s war in Ukraine’s east, Dmitry Kozak, is undoubtedly the source of the outpouring of secret documents to the Russian daily Kommersant (March 24), revealing the negotiating positions of the parties to the Normandy process (Germany, France, Russia, Ukraine).... MORE

Kazakhstan’s Lake Balkhash, the 15th largest freshwater lake in the world, may follow the Aral Sea into extinction, Russian researcher Petr Bologov warned six years ago. Not only is the lake threatened by excessive water use by the population and agricultural development in Kazakhstan, but... MORE

On March 23, the Suez Canal, one of the world’s busiest transport arteries, became blocked in both directions when the ultra-large Golden-class container ship Ever Given (operated by the firm Evergreen), en route from Malaysia to the Netherlands, ran aground cross-ways. For nearly a week,... MORE

On March 6, a modernized Georgian Su-25UB Grach (NATO classification: “Frogfoot”) ground-attack/close air support (CAS) jet, successfully completed a post-repair test flight (Business-partner.ge, March 6). The reconstruction and modernization of Georgia’s fleet of Su-25 aircraft is being carried out in cooperation with Tbilisi Aircraft Manufacture... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Decree No. 201 came into effect on March 20, 2021. The executive edict adds Crimea and Sevastopol to “the list of Russia’s border territories where foreign citizens, stateless persons, and foreign legal entities cannot own land.” As such, non-Russians, including Ukrainian... MORE

The foreboding in Moscow of a new escalation of tensions with the West has given way to feelings of almost disappointing anticlimax. United States President Joseph Biden’s attestation of President Vladimir Putin as a “killer” was taken for a sure sign of a surge in... MORE

Over the past decade, Moscow has made regular use of private military and security companies to project power in areas where it wants to maintain at least limited deniability while taking advantage of the weaknesses of local governments (see EDM, March 16, 2017, March 22,... MORE

Russia abandoned the ceasefire in Ukraine’s east in early February (see EDM, February 18) and persists with low-intensity positional warfare to date, killing and wounding several Ukrainian soldiers every week. Ukraine responds with unilateral self-restraint, lest it be accused of breaching itself the ceasefire or... MORE

Russian media contends that the domestically manufactured Sputnik V—a COVID-19 vaccine developed last year by the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology—is the world’s second-most highly approved inoculation against the novel coronavirus (Vzglyad, March 5). In truth, official data on the effectiveness of the... MORE

Signs of the Belarusian government’s rising self-confidence in the face of domestic protests and Western reproaches have been multiplying in recent weeks. First of all, arrests of opposition activists continue.  Thus, on March 16, the authorities in Minsk apprehended two women, 32 and 42 years... MORE