Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin and Ambassador Zurab Abashidze, the special envoy of the prime minister of Georgia, held a special meeting in Prague, on July 7 (Agenda.ge, July 7). In the absence of regular diplomatic relations between the two countries since Russia’s aggression... MORE

Moscow wishes to expand its military-political influence in the Middle East by drawing into the war in Syria members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a Russian-led, amorphous military bloc that also includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. On June 22, the chairman... MORE

Last Friday’s (July 7) meeting between President of the United States Donald Trump, and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, was so intensely anticipated and so poorly prepared in terms of the agenda that its outcome remains broadly open... MORE

On June 22, Minsk hosted a large gathering of top diplomats from Central and Eastern Europe, who came to Belarus to participate in the annual foreign ministers’ meeting of the Central European Initiative (CEI). The event took place within the framework of the Belarusian presidency... MORE

The Russian government is increasingly concerning itself with the views and aspirations of the youth. Until recently, schoolchildren and students seemed quite indifferent to politics. However, young people made up a large proportion of attendants at banned opposition rallies this year—on March 26 and June... MORE

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has completed its plan, announced last year (July 9, 2016) at the Alliance’s Warsaw Summit, to deploy four multinational battalions to Poland, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania as a counter to the apparent Russian threat on its eastern flank, in... MORE

No sooner had the uproar caused by Svetlana Alexievich’s pronouncement about Belarusian Catholics (see EDM, June 15) calmed down, than a new scandal broke. Now, Russians are the offended party. Alexievich is the 2015 Nobel Prize laureate in literature. Born in 1948, in Ukraine, to... MORE

With the 2016 parliamentary elections barely over, Georgia is readying itself for the October 2017 local elections. Their importance is hard to overestimate. Five mayoral posts for five self-governing cities and 67 gubernatorial offices (referred to in Georgia as Gamgebeli) for 67 municipalities, are up... MORE

Rail Baltica, the European-standard-gauge railway project for the Baltic States, which also has important security implications (see EDM, October 19, 2016), is becoming a more important component of the future regional economy and security architecture. And now, Ukraine has expressed interest in joining this project... MORE

After the change of leadership in Uzbekistan, it has been widely acknowledged that the country’s new president, Shavkat Mirziyaev, is pursuing a more proactive and constructive regional diplomacy in Central Asia than his predecessor (see EDM, October 26, 2016; December 15, 2016). Along with Mirziyaev’s... MORE