On August 25, the president of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, held an unusually late, evening meeting with the governor of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. The portion of their discussion published on the Kremlin’s official website gave no apparent indication as why this meeting needed to... MORE

Moscow deliberately upped the ante in Donbas and filled the dog days of August with endless speculation that it might launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine (Interfax, August 15). The cycle of troop movements, placing units on alert, and announcing snap inspections was matched by... MORE

The death of Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov at 78 has focused attention on the issue of generational change both past and present across post-Soviet Central Asia. Given the central role played by these five republics’ presidents in the aftermath of the Soviet Union, that is... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. It was a summit of modest expectations and modest results for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Warsaw on July 8–9. These results are of an interim nature: building-blocks for further decisions at upcoming ministerial meetings, not... MORE

After long years of model stability, Kazakhstan is currently facing increasing turbulence in its economy and security. The country continues to struggle with the negative repercussions of the oil market slowdown, which has exacerbated social tensions domestically—most notably observed in the country-wide protests over land... MORE

The recent coup attempt in Turkey (July 15–16) and the government’s domestic response have occupied a great deal of media attention over the past several weeks. But the broader geopolitical implications are also gradually coming to light as the fallout from the failed plot continues... MORE

It was a summit of modest expectations and modest results for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Warsaw on July 8–9. These results are of an interim nature: building-blocks for further decisions at upcoming ministerial meetings, not waiting until the next summit. The Warsaw... MORE

On June 27, Russian President Vladimir Putin received a letter from President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, expressing Turkey’s willingness to restore ties with Russia (Kremlin.ru, June 27). Immediately, Gazprom spokesperson Sergey Kupriyanov announced his company’s openness to dialogue with Ankara on the construction of... MORE

Recent months have seen conspicuously positive developments in Belarusian-Polish relations after years of political tensions. On July 20, Warsaw hosted political consultations between the foreign ministries of the two states, where the head of Polish diplomacy, Witold Waszczykowski, expressed satisfaction with the “progressing normalization of... MORE

Since 1991, the influence of the Russian Federation in Central Asia has been on the decline, and many have assumed that the United States would move in to fill the resulting vacuum. US influence has indeed increased, at least in certain countries of that strategically... MORE