It has been one month since a group of demobilized Ukrainian soldiers and veterans of the volunteer battalions took it upon themselves (starting on January 25) to enforce a trade embargo with the occupied territories of Donbas (region of eastern Ukraine encompassing the Donetsk and... MORE

The Crimean peninsula is a valuable asset, especially for its military attributes. When Russia illegally annexed Crimea in February–March 2014, it notably gained full de facto control over Sevastopol (where the Russian Black Sea Fleet is based and had until then been leasing its facilities)... MORE

Russia’s S-400 Triumf (NATO classification: SA-21 Growler) air-defense weapons system appears to be generating ever greater interest among a number of potential customers around the world, including China, India, Turkey and Vietnam. For the time being, this fact is widely acclaimed in Russia. But how... MORE

Kazakhstani President Nursultan Nazarbayev surprised his fellow citizens and international observers alike when he announced, on January 11, the establishment of a special commission to elaborate wide-ranging constitutional reform. It had been less than two months since Nazarbayev spoke to a group of Western journalists... MORE

Since the beginning of February 2017, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has begun to implement the decision taken at the Alliance’s summit in Warsaw last July to deploy a rotational battalion-sized combat unit to each of the Baltic States and Poland. The bolstering of... MORE

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu used the shortened workweek before Red Army Day (February 23—officially rechristened “Defender of the Fatherland Day,” following the collapse of the Soviet Union) to promote Russia’s military successes. Dressed in an army general’s uniform decorated with military ribbons, Shoigu addressed an... MORE

One news story has been dominating headlines in Russia’s Krasnodar region (also known as Kuban, after the main river) for weeks: that of the alleged embezzlement of funds originally designated for the building of a perinatal clinic in Sochi. The funds were awarded under the... MORE

The Georgian Ministry of Defense (MoD) has reintroduced compulsory military service in the army, eight months after then–defense minister Tina Khidasheli abolished military conscription (Civil Georgia, February 15). As early as November 2016, Georgian Minister of Defense Levan Izoria announced his plans to ultimately restore... MORE

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė told journalists in Riga earlier this month (February 2017), “We are worried about the Zapad 2017 exercise, during which concentrations of extremely large and aggressive forces will demonstrate [Russian] preparations for war with the West” (Delfi.lt, February 9). Russia’s large-scale exercise... MORE

Belarus’s legendary calm was shattered by three momentous disruptions in recent days. First, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka surprisingly agreed to a two-hour meeting with Iosif Seredich, the editor-in-chief of the major opposition newspaper Narodnaya Volya. Second, mass rallies have gripped Minsk and Belarus’s other five regional... MORE