In mid-October, the nationalist-leaning Qazaquni.kz website, run by the Ak Zhol (Democratic Party) of Kazakhstan, published an appeal to Russian-speaking compatriots, calling on them to learn Kazakh. The article stresses that “it is not obligatory for Kazakhs to know Russian,” and therefore, now Kazakhs are... MORE

Three habitual criticisms have long been leveled at Belarus: It is too authoritarian, too close to Russia, and both ills stem from over two decades of uninterrupted rule by President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, “Europe’s last dictator.” “News” stories about his government being on the verge of... MORE

Yesterday (October 31), Russian President Vladimir Putin made two important but potentially contradictory and explosive promises. First, he told the Congress of Russian Compatriots that Moscow will increase its efforts to defend Russians living abroad, something that he hopes will lead to an expansion of... MORE

Russia’s sole aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, suffered another mishap while undergoing overhaul work (capitalny remont) at a dockyard in Roslyakovo, near Murmansk. The Kuznetsov was being renovated while moored inside floating dock PD-50—the biggest such dock in Russia and one of the largest in... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. The infamous affair involving a Russian “patriotic” youth camp in Zlatibor, Serbia, which was shut down by the local police in August 2018, highlighted Moscow’s growing attempts to spread its “Russian World” (“Russkiy Mir”) ideology to other countries... MORE

The first round of presidential elections, held in Georgia on October 28, did not reveal a winner. The candidate from the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party, former French ambassador to Tbilisi Salome Zurabishvili, and her main opponent, former foreign minister Grigory Vashadze, representing the United... MORE

Even without the enormous scandal of the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi hit men allegedly operating under state auspices, late October 2018 has been especially eventful for Saudi Arabia. In particular, Riyadh announced two major investments into Russian funds (RT, October 23;... MORE

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hosted a summit in Istanbul, on October 27, which brought together President Vladimir Putin of Russia, President Emmanuel Macron of France and Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel. The four European leader gathered to try to formulate a solution to the Syrian... MORE

Since initiating the reform of the Russian Armed Forces in 2008, Moscow has paid close attention to the development of its own network-centric warfare capability. Elements of this version of network-centric approaches to combat operations have involved strengthening electronic warfare (EW) capacity, modernizing infrastructure, reforming... MORE

A serious conflict has arisen between Moscow and Minsk over a proposed joint military defense strategy document. The Russian side declares that it will treat any attack on Belarus as an attack on itself (see EDM, October 23) and thus needs to have a Russian... MORE