One of the few world leaders yet to acknowledge the outcome of the presidential election in the United States is Russian President Vladimir Putin. This procrastination is strikingly uncharacteristic: Putin, for instance, congratulated Maia Sandu the next day after her victory over incumbent and patently... MORE

Russia is determinedly expanding its influence in Africa. On November 16, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an order for the country to build a naval base on Sudan’s Red Sea coast, its first in Africa since the end of the Cold War. According to Putin’s... MORE

The turbulent stalemate in Minsk continues, despite the fact that street protests have been subsiding and their full-scale resumption is not expected before March, as noted by, among others, Belarusian political commentator Artyom Shraibman (Current Time TV, November 20). By then, not only will the... MORE

The 44-day war between Armenia and Azerbaijan (September 27–November 9) has resulted in an Azerbaijani national triumph, a Russian geopolitical and diplomatic victory over the West, and a conclusive discrediting of multilateral diplomacy as an instrument for conflict-resolution in and around the post-Soviet space (see... MORE

Almost from the moment he came to power (2018), Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian rejected the “Basic Principles” worked out by the Minsk Group’s co-chairs (the United States, Russia, France) for resolving the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Karabakh. Tabled by the three co-chairing countries in 2009... MORE

The annual “Russian March”—an attempt by extreme nationalist forces to appropriate Russia’s National Unity Day (November 4)—has routinely provided a suggestive measure of the evolving strength of the radical-right opposition to President Vladimir Putin (see EDM, November 6, 2017 and November 9, 2018). This year... MORE

During his first trip to the Russian Far East as prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin berated the inadequate level of infrastructure of the local seaport in Magadan (on the Sea of Okhotsk), which, he noted, hindered the surrounding region’s economic development and international outreach (Korabel.ru, August... MORE

Like a number of other regional neighbors and global powers, Turkey has been expanding its attention to and involvement with the countries of the South Caucasus in recent months. That growing focus has, of course, been driven most immediately by the latest round of fierce... MORE

On November 20, the Moldovan Central Electoral Commission validated the results of the country’s recent presidential elections, officially giving a victory in the second round (November 15) to Maia Sandu (Protv.md, November 20). The Constitutional Court will still have to confirm the outcome, after the... MORE

On October 31, the Tsargrad Hotel, owned by Russian “Orthodox oligarch” Konstantin Malofeev, hosted the Sixth Congress of the Union of Donbas Volunteers (UDV). The UDV is headed by former prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) Alexander Borodai (Komsomolskaya Pravda, October 31).... MORE