Executive Summary: Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s visit to Beijing for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit on August 31–September 1 emphasizes Baku’s recent push for the formation of a multivector diplomatic position. Baku seeks deeper SCO engagement to boost the Middle Corridor, but India appears... MORE

Executive Summary: Moscow is using drone incursions in Romania and Poland to test the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO’s) readiness and resolve, seeking to highlight divisions over how to respond to this new form of aggression. Moscow’s simultaneous moves in Svalbard (Spitzbergen), a Norwegian archipelago... MORE

Executive Summary: Belarusian officials insist that the joint strategic exercise Zapad-2025 of the Regional Troops Grouping (RTG) of Belarus and Russia poses no threat to neighboring states, has limited parameters, and is purely defensive in nature. The Belarusian authorities present the scaling back of strategic... MORE

Executive Summary: Sergey Karaganov, one of the founders of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, has created the “Code of the Russian” to codify an analogue of Soviet ideals adapted to Putin’s Russia. Stalin’s image is being rehabilitated in Russia through new monuments... MORE

Executive Summary: Russia’s September 9–10 drone attack, when at least 19 decoy Gerbera drones entered Polish airspace, caused little physical damage but triggered a swift response, including operation “Eastern Sentry,” in a kinetic test of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) resolve. Moscow’s incursion occurred alongside... MORE

Executive Summary: The number of Russian companies registered both in Russia and Georgia that are winning Georgian state tenders is increasing, even though Russia has occupied 20 percent of Georgia’s territory since Moscow’s 2008 invasion of Georgia. Russian companies winning Georgian state contracts became more... MORE