The protests in Yerevan against rising electricity prices have sparked a debate over the motives, expectations, and impact of this public outcry (see EDM, June 27). Energy shortfalls and crises have long been a sensitive subject for Armenia due to the painful experiences of energy... MORE

The Bolshevik government achieved two goals by dividing up the territory of Central Asia into various national republics—it undermined the Pan-Turkic aspirations of the jadids, and it helped break the anti-Soviet basmachi movement by refocusing the attention of the local population on national construction, according... MORE

Moscow still fails to properly calibrate the relationship between threat assessment and modeling a military to match, with complementary defense industry support. Recent statements from the top brass suggest that a reassessment of Russia’s perceived threat environment is well underway, while the idea of promoting... MORE

On June 27, the Circassian organization Adyge Khase held a conference in Karachaevo-Cherkessia. Participants accused the republic’s authorities of neglecting Circassian villages and putting pressure on Circassian businesses, calling for an extraordinary conference of the Circassian people. Circassians in Karachaevo-Cherkessia accuse the republican authorities of... MORE

On June 22, the World Bank approved $12 million in additional financing for Tajikistan for a project creating temporary employment in rural districts (clearing irrigation and drainage canals). This financing is a specific effort to assist the country in tackling the impact of falling remittances... MORE

Ukraine has taken one step back from looming default as an agreement was reached to start direct talks with Kyiv’s biggest private creditors. This is despite a setback with Russia, which has refused to discuss the restructuring of a loan issued in 2013 as a... MORE

On June 26, one day after the Russian security services killed Magomed-Ali Aliev and his wife Leila in Nazran, Ingushetia (Topwar.ru, June 25; see EDM, July 1), law enforcement agencies in the Chechen capital Grozny killed two suspected terrorists. According to the Chechen government forces,... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here. Politician Renato Usatii is a native of Moldova but is a product of the Vladimir Putin era in Russia. Born in 1978, near Balti, of indeterminate ethnicity and more fluent in... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. The local elections, just held country-wide in Moldova (see Part One in EDM, July 1), confirm an incipient tendency toward political-territorial fragmentation of the country’s heartland, the right-bank of the Nistru River. This creeping trend became noticeable with... MORE

The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office (Genprocuratura) announced it was investigating the legality of the independence of the Baltic States—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—which were recognized by the State Council of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in September 1991. In late June, the Genprocuratura announced... MORE