Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine, starting in 2014, has naturally had a galvanizing effect on the Ukrainian military-industrial complex and its potential. According to various sources (see below), this progress has been most apparent in areas including heavy weapons and equipment, production of small arms... MORE

Belarus’s already strained relations with Russia have recently deteriorated even further. Several new indications add to the previously compiled list (see EDM, January 18, 20). First, during a January 18 episode of the Russian talk show Pravo Golosa, a casual survey of the TV audience... MORE

Three years into war and domestic turbulence, Ukraine entered 2017 with news of a high-profile criminal incident. Serhiy Pashynsky, a notorious Ukrainian member of parliament (MP) from the People’s Front (PF) party, one of the ruling coalition’s two member-factions, shot and wounded Vyacheslav Khimikus, an... MORE

For at least the last 15 years, there has been an intense debate in both Russia and the West about how radical Islam can be defeated. Some argue that force alone is sufficient, but their opponents say that because radical Islam is an ideological project,... MORE

As a number of key countries in the Western Balkans continue to experience serious political volatility, the blame is increasingly falling on Russia’s subversive local activities and an insufficient level of engagement in this region by the European Union and the United States (Shqiptarja.com, January... MORE

By approving additional defense spending in their national budgets for 2017, the Baltic States—Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia—strongly answered Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. Their budget figures, adopted this past December, mean not only greater resources for their own national defense, but also a significant step forward... MORE

Chinese President Xi Jinping was this year’s star guest at the World Economic Forum in Davos (January 17–20), where the mood of the traditional crowd of successful entrepreneurs and high-flying politicians was far from jubilant. The shadow of the inauguration of US President Donald Trump... MORE

Mukhammad Khangoshvili, a 24-year-old inhabitant of the village of Duisi, in Pankisi Gorge, Georgia, was killed, on November 7, 2016, in a bombing of the Islamic State’s (IS) positions in the Iraqi city of Mosul (News.ge, November 8, 2016). Khangoshvili previously served as a bodyguard... MORE

This past fall, Ukraine came under a media influence campaign that agitated for reinstating economic ties with Russia. Over the course of September­–December 2016, several Ukrainian websites published a series of news stories detailing calls by various domestic enterprises and regional and municipal communities to... MORE

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014, Belarus’s strategic position has become riskier and more acutely endangered, a fact the government in Minsk undoubtedly understands quite well. At the same time, Western governments, especially Belarus’s neighbors like Poland and the Baltic States, are watching... MORE