Russia’s military intervention in Syria is clearly not going well. Last Friday (July 8), another helicopter was reportedly shot down near Palmyra, and the Russian Ministry of Defense, after an initial denial, had to admit that the downed aircraft was not a Syrian Mi-25, but... MORE

The Belarusian ruble was re-denominated on July 1. Over the next six months, the banknotes in circulation will be replaced with new banknotes and coins in proportion of 10,000 old Belarusian rubles per 1 new Belarusian ruble. Thus, the legendary number of zeros on Belarusian... MORE

Many in the West typically think about the three Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as a single undifferentiated whole. But in fact, they are quite different despite being small and located next to one another (Paul Goble, “The Baltics: Three States, Three Fates,”... MORE

Georgian Defense Minister Tina Khidasheli signed a decree, on June 26, effectively abolishing military conscription by the Ministry of Defense (MoD). The decree applies only to the MoD and hence, to only 25 percent of the country’s conscripts. The remaining 75 percent of recruits were... MORE

Late on July 10, the head of Abkhazia’s Central Electoral Commission, Batal Tabagua, admitted that a mere 0.99 percent of registered voters had cast a ballot in the referendum on holding early presidential elections in the republic (Gazeta.ru, July 10). The referendum in Abkhazia reflected... MORE

The end of June 2016 featured two noticeable events that might alter Russian posture in the Baltic Sea region: Moscow resurrected its threats to deploy Iskander-M ballistic missiles to Kaliningrad oblast, and the Russian high command carried out an unprecedented in Russian history “decapitation” of... MORE

Be careful what you wish for because it just might come true. In the past, this author had often heard Russian diplomats complain that the West fails to pay proper attention to Moscow and that Russia’s position is being ignored. But the North Atlantic Treaty... MORE

Dictatorial regimes of all kinds have always sought to control communications, especially between those in their own countries and the outside world. With the Internet, their ability to do so has been much reduced; but it is important to remember that, even before the World... MORE

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said, on July 5, that the June 28 attack at Istanbul’s international airport was carried out by natives of Dagestan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan (Korrespondent.net, July 5). “Unfortunately, our neighbors from the North Caucasus were involved in the terrorist attack,” Erdoğan... MORE

US Secretary of State John Kerry’s public message in Kyiv on July 7 (see accompanying article) reaffirms, broadly, the talking points that Assistant Secretary Victoria Nuland had been delivering in Kyiv since May 2015 (see EDM, May 26). It was at that point that Kerry... MORE