Air defense is crucial for the security of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) eastern flank. Yet, despite an ambitious modernization drive, spurned on one hand by a mounting Russian threat and on the other by aging and obsolescent capabilities, NATO member Romania finds itself... MORE

Algeria is undertaking a major arms acquisition program designed to enhance its regional standing and make it difficult for terrorists or insurgent forces to operate on Algerian territory. To this end, it has become a major purchaser of Russian arms that are often battle-proven in... MORE

The culmination of the combat training year in Russia’s Armed Forces results in an annual operational-strategic military exercise involving air, land and sea elements to test forces in one of four theaters: these are the rotating Kavkaz (“Caucasus”), Tsentr (“Center”), Zapad (“West”) and Vostok (“East”)... MORE

The standoff between Moldova’s ruling Democratic Party and the country’s pro-European opposition escalated following the cancelation of a democratic election for Chisinau mayor, won by the opposition, earlier this summer (see EDM, June 27). On the dawn of Moldovan Independence Day, on August 27, after... MORE

Shocking news at the end of July of the murder of three independent Russian journalists investigating the activity of a Russian private defense company in the Central African Republic (CAR) was followed a month later with the signing of a military cooperation agreement between that... MORE

Military preparations for an offensive on the rebel-controlled Syrian province of Idlib are complete, air strikes have already commenced, and the Russian diplomatic dance around Syria’s war zone is moving into its final phase. Yet, the costs of the devastating victory might turn out to... MORE

The murder of Kazakhstan’s Olympic figure skater Denis Ten in downtown Almaty, on July 19, aroused public grief and outrage as well as calls for police reforms. Two days later, thousands attended the memorial service of the 25-year-old, who won a bronze medal at the... MORE

United States President Donald Trump’s behavior at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) recent summit in Brussels (July 11–12) and in its aftermath has cast a shadow on this landmark event. Trump’s follow-up actions, including the meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, continued hitting... MORE

Since the Kremlin deployed “Cossacks” to disperse an anti-government demonstration in early May (see EDM, May 17), the Russian government has pumped enormous sums of money into this pseudo-movement, giving it increasingly sordid tasks, and playing up its support for the regime via state-controlled media.... MORE

On August 8, 2008, the simmering confrontation with constant shooting and shelling between Georgian government forces and Ossetian separatists armed, financed and supported by Russia suddenly turned into an all-out Russo-Georgian war. As detailed in the 2009 study The Guns of August 2008: Russia’s War... MORE