On April 16-17 Dmitry Rogozin, Russian Deputy Prime Minister overseeing the arms industry, visited Chisinau and Tiraspol for the first time in his parallel capacities: Russian presidential envoy “for Transnistria” (po Pridnestrovyu) and chairman on the Russian side of the Russia-Moldova inter-governmental cooperation commission. Russia’s... MORE

Armenia has again ruled out the possibility of joining a Russian-led customs union, which Russia’s President-elect Vladimir Putin hopes could form the backbone of a future “Eurasian Union” of former Soviet republics remaining within Moscow’s orbit. Yerevan has made this clear in advance of free... MORE

Meeting with ambassadors on March 2, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev suggested that Central Asian states launch a common free trade zone, saying the region “enjoys a vast potential to be a global center” (tengrinews.kz, March 2). The initiative comes on the heels of an earlier... MORE

On April 3, in a bloody incident in Nazran, five people were killed on their way home from their jobs at a brickyard (www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/204389/). The incident illuminated the authorities’ incompetence and inadequate response to the processes occurring in the republic. Government agents surrounded the car... MORE

Since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in Syria more than a year ago, Western and Arab diplomats and journalists continue to ask the same question: When will Moscow abandon the seemingly doomed regime or put pressure on Damascus to stop the carnage that,... MORE

The Belarusian political commentator Andrei Fyodorov cast light on why the fight for democracy in Belarus, which the EU and the US have been waging non-stop since 1996, has never succeeded. According to Fyodorov, “the Belarusian society itself does not reveal a willingness to fight... MORE

A court in Adygea has unexpectedly, and probably inadvertently, endorsed Circassian aspirations for a unified republic in the North Caucasus. On April 3, it was announced that the court in Maikop had ruled that the ethnic Cherkess living in Adygea were not an ethnicity separate... MORE

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, accompanied by members of his cabinet, paid an official visit to China on April 8-11. The first by a Turkish PM in 27 years, the trip was remarkable in many ways and underlined the parties’ continued determination to deepen... MORE

Moscow plans to introduce a new training program for military professionals in early May, which envisages intensive six week courses for contract personnel. The latest in an endless series of experiments aimed at improving standards among kontraktniki is also intended to reverse the long standing... MORE

In February 2012, Giorgi Baramidze, Deputy Prime Minister of Georgia and State Secretary for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, revealed that Ukraine is continuing to supply weapons to Georgia. “Moscow’s position is not upheld by practically the entire world community. And, thank God, that Ukraine also... MORE