Moscow very much hopes to strengthen both itself and its alliance with Beijing by helping China corner the rare earths market in response to American plans for a blockade of Chinese technology producers. Russia could do so by providing supplies of these critical minerals to... MORE

*Read Part One. As Belarus seeks to maintain its “neutral” position in Russia’s war against Ukraine, it is clear that Minsk is keen to mobilize recruits for military training and address key questions of manpower and equipment shortages (Ukrainska Pravda, February 26, March 14). In... MORE

As a relatively small country squeezed between two increasingly antagonistic centers of power, Russia and the European Union, Belarus has always stood out for its dependency on multifaceted external factors. The war in Ukraine has exacerbated this dependency and added new aspects to it. Thus,... MORE

On April 24, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, presiding over a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, delivered an important speech devoted mainly to accusations of the collective West in revising the principles and values of the UN Charter (Mid.ru, April 24). In this... MORE

Recently, the so-called “national-patriotic” elite in Russia have intensified their attacks on the government’s financial and economic bloc. On April 21, well-known Russian propagandist and economist Mikhail Khazin revealed, “Liberals remaining at their posts in the Central Bank and Ministry of Finance significantly contribute to... MORE

On April 17, the Slovak Defense Ministry announced that Slovakia had delivered the promised 13 Soviet-made MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine (Kyiv Independent, April 17). Earlier, the German government had authorized Poland to hand over an additional five MiG-29s, originally from the former reserve of... MORE

In an aim to make itself more independent of Russia, Kazakhstan is rapidly expanding its fleet of oil tankers so it can ship more oil across the Caspian to Azerbaijan and then onward to the West via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline—rather than using mostly Russian routes... MORE

On April 13, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev paid an official visit to Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. While there, Aliyev met with his counterparts, the members of the Bosnian tripartite presidency, Željka Cvijanović, Denis Bećirović and Željko Komšić (Azertac, April 13). Despite the shortness of the visit—Aliyev departed... MORE

Russia’s war against Ukraine has understandably overshadowed numerous other developments across Eastern Europe that would normally attract significant international attention. One of these is the lingering theme of bilateral integration between Belarus and Russia under the auspices of the Union State. And even with the... MORE

*Read Part One. Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine is creating a myriad of problems for the Russian economy. While the Russian state budget is experiencing a deficit, the Russian Central Bank posted some uninviting news: its annual deficit for 2022 was 27 times higher... MORE