By meeting with the leaders of the pro-Moscow Moldovan Socialist Party last week (November 4) (kremlin.ru, November 5), Russian President Vladimir Putin has sent the kind of signal to the Gagauz that they have been waiting for. And therefore, according to Dmitry Konstantinov, Moldova’s Gagauz... MORE

No darling of the Western media, Belarus suffers from a peculiar imbalance between two kinds of reporting about it. Much more is written about Belarus’s Soviet legacy and its relationships with external centers of power, Russia and the European Union, than about the actual developments... MORE

The armistice agreements, signed on September 5 and 19–20, remain basically unimplemented on the Russian side, politically and militarily. Russia’s proxy forces have “de-escalated” their attacks on Ukrainian positions, but continue attacking at a lower level of intensity, inflicting Ukrainian casualties. Russia itself is far... MORE

Having annexed the Crimean peninsula, Russia unintentionally accelerated the laying of groundwork for cooperation between the Crimean Tatars and the Circassians, according to Circassian activist Andzor Kabard. The Circassian Rights Initiative, a Turkish organization, took the first steps to establish closer contacts with the Crimean... MORE

In a case of striking symbolism, President Vladimir Putin traveled to Beijing on the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, as if seeking reassurance against the specter of a mass public uprising. The dismantling of that icon of the Cold War signified... MORE

On October 18, police in Tajikistan announced that they had arrested 13 members of a terrorist group who had allegedly plotted to attack a military unit, seize weapons, and blow up two major tunnels linking the country’s north with the rest of the republic. According... MORE

Mongolian politics were shaken on November 5, when the parliament voted to dismiss Prime Minister Norov Altankhuyag for not addressing the country’s drastically slowing economic growth, plunging foreign investment, and alleged corruption and cronyism. Altankhuyag’s administration, self-labeled the “New Government for Changes,” collapsed after serving... MORE

Lately, hardly a day passes without another announcement of a new Russian military deployment in the Arctic. Yet, the Arctic’s fundamental strategic importance to Russia is economic: namely, the potential for extracting immense amounts of energy and other raw materials. Undeniably, climate change and the... MORE

Reading the Ukrainian media earlier this year gave one the impression that Ukraine was fighting not Russia, but Chechnya (vesti.ru, May 28). Few doubted that Chechens were fighting on the Russian side in eastern Ukraine, but their numbers were greatly exaggerated. The deployment of Russian... MORE

The parties of President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk won an early parliamentary election on October 26 and have started talks on forming a new governing coalition. As radicals of all kinds lost the election, Ukraine now has a chance to obtain a... MORE