When analysts consider Vladimir Putin’s strategy for running the regions of the Russian Federation, they generally focus on his supra-regional “innovations.” Those have included the federal districts he created at the start of his presidency (Ura.ru, April 24, 2014), the amalgamation of federal subjects he... MORE

United States President Joseph Biden jolted the political-military leadership in Moscow with his eleventh-hour prolongation of the New START strategic nuclear arms control treaty that was scheduled to expire on February 5, 2021 (see EDM, January 21, 25, 2021). New START, signed by then-Presidents Barack... MORE

Army General Valery Gerasimov, the chief of Russia’s General Staff (CGS) and first deputy defense minister, has been chosen as the new president of the Academy of Military Sciences (Akademii Voyennykh Nauk—AVN). This does not mean Gerasimov has left his current position as CGS; he... MORE

“Remember, I said a year ago […] that perhaps a time will come when [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and I will have to stand next to each other and shoot back. And you took it for a joke. But you now see how life has... MORE

A 30-year feud over an offshore oil field located between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan in the Caspian Sea has finally come to an end. In mid-January 2021, Ashgabat and Baku agreed to the joint development of the large field, now renamed Dostlug, which means "Friendship" in... MORE

As in much of the rest of the world, the year 2020 in Kazakhstan was dominated by the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, which to date has claimed the lives of more than 2,300 Kazakhstanis, according to a government-run information portal. Since August 2020, the... MORE

Russian efforts to control the Northern Sea Route and to secure exclusive access to the local seabed, from which it hopes to pump oil and natural gas as well as mine coal and other minerals for export, have been attracting increasing attention for years (see... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here. The Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Karabakh was the only Soviet-legacy conflict that did not feature Russian “peacekeeping” troops during the 26-year period between the first armistice, in 1994, and the latest armistice,... MORE

The January 11 trilateral meeting, in Moscow, of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev focused on the unblocking and development of regional transport corridors in accordance with the Russia-brokered November 9/10 truce accord that ended the 44-day... MORE

After two decades of restrictions and harassment, President Vladimir Putin’s government is on the verge of forcing Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) to shut down its operations in Russia. The prospect sets up an immediate test for the new administration in the United States: can... MORE