On the night of March 30, an Italian frigate commander, Walter Biot, was caught red-handed selling documents to Dimitry Ostrukhov, an employee at the Russian embassy in Rome (Repubblica, March 31). The documents, whose content has not been disclosed, are said to regard North Atlantic... MORE

On March 22, 2021, in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast about 350 kilometers east of Moscow, the Russian 96th Reconnaissance Brigade of the Western Military District exercised a scenario in which its forces, without firing a single shot, compelled a group of “terrorists” to surrender a simulated... MORE

*To read part one, please click here The unblocking of the Zangezur corridor will have wide-ranging geopolitical reverberations for both the directly concerned states, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and surrounding countries. For Azerbaijan, the reopening of the corridor has geostrategic significance in multiple domains. This route... MORE

On March 31, during a virtual meeting with the Kremlin, the president of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia (FNPR), Mikhail Shmakov, proposed that any companies operating within the domestic defense industry (DI) sector that fail to meet state procurement obligations should be... MORE

The Russian Ministry of Defense announced today (April 13) that Moscow is sending 15 naval vessels from its Caspian Flotilla to waters off Ukraine to take part in military exercises there. Earlier, Russian and Ukrainian media had reported stories about a smaller number. Although the... MORE

On April 4, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka proposed to “optimize” the number of Belarusian embassies and their staff around the world. Essentially, the Belarusian leader declared, if Belarus’s “diplomatic presence” in some countries has no “prospects” because of a minuscule volume of mutual trade and/or because... MORE

Russian natural gas giant Gazprom signed a preliminary agreement with global engineering company Linde to deliver engineering and procurement services for the Ust-Luga gas processing plant on the Baltic Sea. Gazprom CEO Miller signed the agreement on behalf of RusKhimAlyans, a special-purpose company established on... MORE

Putting military pressure on Ukraine could have seemed to the Russian leadership to be the most practical way to assert Moscow’s central role in international affairs. The standard working assumption in the Kremlin is that facing a risk of violent conflict, the disunited West would... MORE

During a recent (March 24) government meeting dedicated to upgrading Uzbekistan’s energy infrastructure, President Shavkat Mirziyoyev announced that, in 2021 alone, over $1.1 billion would be allocated to upgrading the country’s ineffective and outdated electricity grid and crumbling natural gas distribution system. Energy Minister Alisher... MORE

Moscow has long wanted to develop its railway network east of the Urals, both to promote the development of that largely road-less region and to expand the export of raw materials like coal. Those two factors continue to be important, but they have been joined... MORE