The oil price fixing pact known as “OPEC+”—between the original oil-producing members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and some non-members, primarily Russia—was agreed in December 2016 and implemented in 2017. By limiting oil production, OPEC+ helped keep global prices relatively high.... MORE

Kazakhstan’s government has been fighting the novel coronavirus since mid-March, having declared a one-month state of emergency as the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country began to approach 20 (Informburo.kz, March 15). Two weeks after that, the authorities imposed stricter measures in two... MORE

In the wake of the novel coronavirus outbreak in Italy, the country has become the target of a number of foreign diplomatic and public relations operations. Following a phone call, on March 21, between Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and Russian President Vladimir Putin, Russia... MORE

In December 2019, President Donald Trump formally created the United States Space Force, a development that Moscow has been following with keen interest. As the US takes additional steps to develop this newest military branch, the Russian military continues to further strengthen its own space-based... MORE

At the end of February 2020, the Russian Aerospace Forces received their first S-350 Vityaz medium-range air-defense missile system. This initial battery will be used at the Anti-Aircraft Missile Troops Training Center of the Aerospace Defense Military Academy, located in the Leningrad region (Novy Uchkhoz... MORE

According to the Belarusian Ministry of Health (MH), as of April 4, 440 people had contracted the novel coronavirus responsible for causing COVID-19. That number included 41 recovered and 394 hospitalized patients. Five people died; all of them had multiple chronic diseases that were aggravated... MORE

The current COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic is not the only example of how a problem originating deep inside the borders of one country can quickly spread to others. Namely, an industrial accident in Northeastern China has just released 2.53 million cubic meters of highly poisonous industrial... MORE

The Danube is the second-longest river in Europe and one of its main transport and communication routes. In terms of economic value, only the Rhine River is more important for the overall European economy. This fact is underscored by the building of the Rhine–Main–Danube canal,... MORE

Russian-Ukrainian relations, increasingly tense since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, plummeted to a new low after Russia’s forcible absorption of the Crimean Peninsula in March 2014 and subsequent invasion of Donbas. On March 18, 2020, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Sevastopol, home of... MORE

President Vladimir Putin’s second address to the nation on the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, delivered last Thursday (April 2), was as brief as his first one, given a week prior—and equally unsatisfactory in style and substance (see EDM, April 2). Wearing what looked like the same... MORE