The European Commission and its president, Jean-Claude Juncker, are bracing for a May 13 deadline, presented to them on April 12 in a quasi-ultimatum form by Nord Stream Two project company CEO, Matthias Warnig (112.international, April 23). On the company’s behalf, Warnig threatens to sue... MORE

On May 1, a Holocaust Remembrance event at the US Department of State focused on the history of the Minsk Ghetto, one of the largest in Nazi-occupied Europe. Most of its 100,000 prisoners were slaughtered when the ghetto was liquidated, including 22,000 Jews transported there... MORE

Increasingly, one of the defining characteristics of Vladimir Putin’s leadership has been its propensity to push the narrative that the Kremlin has a special relationship with ethnic Russians and Russian speakers abroad, groups that Moscow typically lumps together as “the Russian World” (“Russkiy Mir”). Less... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   Historically, the Air and Missile Defense Forces (Voyska Protivovozdushnoy i Protivoraketnoy Oborony—PVO-PRO) have constituted one of the main strengths of the Soviet/Russian Armed Forces and an indispensable national security element (Vko.ru, June 27, 2012). From late 2018... MORE

Russia’s second-largest natural gas producer, Novatek, which captured the largest share of the liquefied natural gas (LNG) market in Europe in the first quarter of 2019, has sold 20 percent of its planned Arctic 2 LNG project to China (Novatek.ru, April 25). The stake went... MORE

Although North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un’s travels inevitably attract a lot of media attention due to his country’s inherent secrecy and opacity, expectations were not high for the summit with Vladimir Putin, on April 25, in Vladivostok (Kommersant, April 25). And to a large degree,... MORE

Military force remains a predominant instrument of choice for Russian policymakers; yet, state expenditures on the Armed Forces continue to decline. This paradoxical situation was recently highlighted by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s (SIPRI) latest global military balance assessment, which the Russian media eagerly... MORE

Even as Armenia and Azerbaijan have intensified their diplomatic contacts over the future status of the latter’s breakaway Karabakh region (see EDM, February 13, March 4, April 1), both rivals concurrently continue to consolidate their military capabilities, considering an escalation in tensions almost inevitable. Both... MORE

The Kremlin’s decree, offering Russian citizenship (“passportization”) to residents of the Russian-occupied Donbas (eastern portions of Donetsk and Luhansk provinces), is the latest in the series of legislative and economic moves to wrest this territory from Ukraine in real terms, absorbing it de facto—though not... MORE

The Kremlin is losing the most important “weapon” in its campaign to restore a semblance of Moscow’s former empire in the post-Soviet space. According to Russian commentator Semyon Novoprudky, that weapon is the economic dependence of many post-Soviet countries on the Russian labor market (Spektr.press,... MORE