Using the Odessa-Brody oil pipeline as originally intended, south-north, is under active consideration again; this time, by the governments of Ukraine and Belarus. The pipeline is being used since 2004 in reverse, north-south, by Russian oil companies, for exports out of Odessa. Such reverse-use blocks... MORE

With the presidential elections in Russia scheduled for 2012, the media presence of President, Dmitry Medvedev, and Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, has increasingly appeared as an image contest, as if the election campaign had already started. Yet, with the elections’ outcome widely expected to be... MORE

Armenian President, Serzh Sargsyan, remains in full control of the political processes in his country and should be able to serve out his first term in office despite renewed street protests staged by his most bitter adversary, Levon Ter-Petrosian (who served as Armenia’s first president... MORE

Insurgency-related violence continued across the North Caucasus this past week, most notably in an attack on the Chechen parliament, as observers continued to discuss the apparent split within the ranks of the North Caucasian rebels.A policeman and his brother were wounded late yesterday (October 21)... MORE

The Franco-German-Russian summit in Deauville and its timing (Medvedev Deflects Merkel-Sarkozy Proposal on Transnistria at Deauville Summit, EDM October 22) reflects the fragmentation of Euro-Atlantic and EU policy-making vis-à-vis Russia. This process was ongoing for some time and accelerated recently. The financial-economic crisis has stimulated... MORE

French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, and German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, met on October 18-19 in Deauville, France, with Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, ahead of summit events scheduled for the coming weeks: NATO, NATO-Russia, and European Union-Russia. The Deauville meeting seemed designed preemptively to influence the discussions... MORE

Turkey’s position on US efforts to create a ballistic missile defense (BMD) system in Europe has emerged as another source of tension in US-Turkish relations. The Bush administration originally contemplated the installment of a missile shield in Eastern Europe, yet failed to achieve its stated... MORE

The leaders of four political parties –Ar-Namys, Ata-Jurt, Respublika, and Social-democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan (SPDK) – traveled to Moscow days after the October 10 parliamentary elections (www.24.kg, October 15). Reportedly, they met with Russian officials to discuss the possibility of forming a coalition. All four... MORE

The summer and fall of 2010 have not been pleasant for the leadership of the Chechen armed resistance movement. A split in the supreme leadership was for a period of time carefully hidden from the public eye by victorious communiqués voiced from other parts of... MORE

A tabloid Moscow weekly reported that Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, has ordered Defense Minister, Anatoliy Serdyukov’s resignation (Argumenti Nedeli, October 20). High-level sources in the Russian government are reported to have dismissed the report as “lunacy” (Interfax, October 21). The public fray reflects a serious... MORE