Executive Summary  Russia is actively expanding ties with Niger’s military junta to consolidate control over resource-rich assets and to push out Western influence. Moscow has now signed multiple agreements to provide security guarantees to Abdourahamane Tchiani and potentially take over the rights to several Nigerien... MORE

Executive Summary: Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka approved a bill that would suspend Belarus’s participation in the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), removing numerical ceilings on armed forces and main conventional weapons systems. Numerous voices in the West have suspected that Minsk could... MORE

Executive Summary: Ukraine’s drone attack on defense industries in Tatarstan has shown the reach of Kyiv’s weapons into Russia and raised questions in the non-Russian republics about Moscow’s ability to defend them. Kazan has concluded that it cannot count on the Russian government to defend... MORE

Executive Summary: The All-Russian Cossack Society continues to establish outposts in the occupied territories of Ukraine under Moscow’s direction.  The state-registered Cossack movement is working to deepen the control of loyal structures in the occupied regions and take advantage of existing social beliefs, particularly through... MORE

Executive Summary: Ukrainian mobilization will be necessary to repel a possible Russian offensive in the coming summer, but a draft mobilization law is currently being held up in Ukraine’s parliament. Such uncertainty has a negative impact on Ukrainian society, opening the way to various manipulations... MORE

Executive Summary: The Kremlin is actively using the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) to drum up support for the war in Ukraine and to spread its influence abroad. Moscow has long used the ROC to achieve its goals by establishing spy networks throughout the post-Soviet space... MORE

Executive Summary: The Georgian government has again introduced a bill on foreign agents that follows the model of similar Russian legislation, specifically targeting nongovernmental organizations and Western donors. The initiative will play a central role in the approaching October parliamentary elections, as Georgian Dream hopes... MORE

Executive Summary: Gagauzia, a small Christian Turkic and pro-Russian autonomous region, says it will exercise its right to secede and form an independent state if Moldova becomes a part of Romania. Chisinau’s pursuit of EU membership and its increasing pressure on Gagauzia, Moscow’s desire to... MORE

Executive Summary: Moscow looks to the Volga region—an ethnically non-Russian region and one of the poorest in Russia—for “volunteers” to fight in the war against Ukraine.  Many of these “volunteer” battalions have experienced heavy losses along the frontlines, which the Russian government attempts to cover... MORE

Executive Summary: Armenia and Azerbaijan’s recent discussion of the ownership of four border villages has stoked tensions regarding both countries’ territorial integrity. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has voiced his openness to ceding these villages to Baku and establishing peace in the region. The Armenian... MORE