The Kremlin has created a new Arctic military command—the clearest and most practical signal yet of Russia’s long-term strategic stake in the High North. Russia’s military Arctic command became operational on December 1. The significance of the change in organizing the country’s military districts or... MORE

Georgian authorities are trying to devise new tactics and a new style of relations with Moscow after the November 24 signing of the Russian-Abkhazian agreement On Alliance and Strategic Partnership (Kavkavsky Uzel, November 24; see EDM, October 29, November 24). However, with Western leaders currently... MORE

Russia has introduced or is planning a series of new repressive legislative acts. First, lawmakers have prepared amendments to a bill that will define as “undesirable” any foreign or international organizations that “present a threat to the constitutional order of the Russian Federation, defense of... MORE

The pro-Europe governing coalition has won narrowly, while the Red Left has shown new strength in Moldova’s parliamentary elections on November 30. The overall political outcome, if not entirely inconclusive, is at least somewhat ambiguous. The stakes in these elections far transcended Moldova in their... MORE

Since this summer, rumors have swirled that Moscow plans to create a Bessarabian People’s Republic on the territory of Ukraine’s Odesa Oblast. Some analysts have suggested that this would allow Moscow to build a bridge to the Transnistria region in Moldova and cut off Ukraine... MORE

In the first ten months of 2014, the industrial output index in Dagestan grew by 139.8 percent—record industrial growth among Russia’s regions. Moreover, in 2013, the republic’s industrial output index grew by an enviable 137.5 percent. These astonishing figures for the economically depressed republic led... MORE

The annexation of Crimea and the hybrid war with Russia that ensued have changed the Ukrainian government’s attitude toward the domestic military industry. Consequently, Ukraine’s arms production sector is likely to cease being an export-oriented industry that depended on Russia and exploited the fame of... MORE

According to a new Russian law, beginning on January 1, 2015, citizens of Tajikistan wishing to enter Russia will no longer be able to use their domestic passports, but will instead need to produce an international passport, a diplomatic passport or a seafarer’s identity document.... MORE

“We have been flying with one wing and we badly need to engage the other one,” President Alyaksandr Lukashenka once quipped, in reference to Belarus’s asymmetric international engagements—too much with Russia, too little with the West. The imbalance, of course, is still there and so... MORE

Rarely a week passes in Dagestan without the authorities launching a new special operation against militants. Some weeks, several special operations take place across the republic. In most instances, these law enforcement actions are based upon information received from Russian moles planted in the ranks... MORE