Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili recently announced an “unprecedented” peace initiative aimed at the country’s occupied territories of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali Region (South Ossetia). The new initiative, made public during an April 4 cabinet meeting, is called “A Step Toward a Better Future.” The wide-ranging plan... MORE

On April 12—on the eve of the United States’ and its allies’ airstrikes against Syria in response to the recent chemical attack in Douma—Russian foreign ministry press secretary Maria Zakharova stated that the US, through programs financed by the Pentagon, is creating a network of... MORE

Russia is continuing to shift away from its earlier support of the government of Morocco toward the Polisario Front (Frente Popular de Liberación de Saguía el Hamra y Río de Oro—POLISARIO), which is challenging Rabat for control of a large portion of the Western Sahara.... MORE

Since first initiating the reforms of the Russian Armed Forces in the fall of 2008, Moscow has developed a number of complimentary niche capabilities. The unifying themes of these reforms have been asymmetry and the recognition that the means and methods of modern warfare have... MORE

President Alyaksandr Lukashenka held a press conference, on April 10, for Belarusian state-run media (Belta, April 10). Among the topics broached were the idea of changes to the constitution, the project of the new Law on Information, and March 25 Freedom Day as a would-be... MORE

Always a misnomer, albeit a deliberate one, Ukraine’s “Anti-Terrorist Operation”(ATO) in and surrounding the temporarily occupied territories of Luhansk and Donetsk is slated to come to an end as of April 30, 2018, some four years after it began. The ATO will cease both on... MORE

For a week following the April 7 chemical attack in Douma (a suburb or Damascus, Syria), Russia was high-strung with anxiety about the United States’ forthcoming punishment of the Bashar al-Assad regime. Moscow issued every kind of denial that a crime had actually been committed,... MORE

The March 25 centennial celebration of the Belarusian People’s Republic (BPR) has triggered multiple anxieties and is still reverberating emotionally in the Belarusian media and across online social networks. Somewhat unexpectedly, one epicenter of anxiety has become the speech by the founder and owner of... MORE

This year, Uzbekistan is organizing its first ever nation-wide al-Quran reciters competition (Muslim.uz, December 22, 2017). Perhaps this kind of competition would be a run-of-the-mill event in any other Muslim majority country; but for Uzbekistan, which is trying to unshackle itself from the repressive policies... MORE

From Moscow’s point of view, its loss of control over much of the Black Sea littoral and ports as a result of the disintegration of the Soviet Union is a serious problem, one that Russian moves first in Abkhazia and then in Crimea were intended... MORE