On June 16, Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vučić and Kosovo’s Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti met in person in Brussels to restart talks between Belgrade and Pristina after 18 months of interruption. The meeting followed a virtual summit on June 10, hosted by German Chancellor Angela Merkel... MORE

On June 9, the press service of the Trans-Adriatic Gas Pipeline (TAP) consortium announced that construction of the 105-kilometer offshore segment of TAP, which will transport Azerbaijani natural gas to Europe, had been completed. This latest development phase comprised the offshore deployment of 36-inch pipes... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   A deeper look at Romania’s new national defense strategy, taken up for consideration by the parliament on June 3, provides some answers as to why Russia’s reaction to this 46-page planning document has been so aggressive (see... MORE

Romania’s new national defense strategy for 2020–2024 has just entered parliamentary debate and is already generating international controversy. The 46-page document (Hotnews.ro, June 4) has drawn Moscow’s ire because it defines the Russian Federation as a “threat” in the Black Sea region and indirectly accuses the... MORE

Ukraine’s ethnic-Bulgarian minority is concentrated in the southwestern part of Ukraine’s Odesa province, an area often if somewhat inaccurately referenced as “Bessarabia.” It forms a triangle between the Dnister/Nistru River, the Danube Estuary and the Black Sea, adjacent to the Russian-controlled Transnistria, and bordering on... MORE

The parliament of Bulgaria has adopted a declaration criticizing Ukraine’s policy toward the Bulgarian minority in Odesa province (see EDM, May 26). This move might seem to indicate that Bulgaria is about to emulate Hungary or Romania, each of which, in its own way (Hungary... MORE

Last week (May 20), pro-Russian legislative deputies in Bulgaria and pro-Moscow ethnic-Bulgarian politicians in Ukraine protested a decision by the Ukrainian government to redraw administrative borders in Odesa Oblast. The Kremlin-leaning ethnic-Bulgarians who expressed their objection said the move was intended to divide their more-than-200,000-strong... MORE

Following the large coronavirus outbreak in Iran, neighboring countries quickly closed their borders with the Islamic Republic. More than a thousand Turkish trucks carrying goods to Central Asia found themselves stuck at checkpoints due to the closure of the Iran-Turkey and Iran-Turkmenistan borders (Daily Sabah,... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   The Romanian Danube Flotilla is Europe’s largest riverine naval force, representing a unique capability, unmatched by any of the other European allies of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) (see Part One in EDM, April 6). The... MORE

Moscow’s dispatch of medical equipment and expertise abroad during the coronavirus pandemic has been anything but disinterested. Instead, it is clearly intended to serve Russia in a variety of ways. The Kremlin is using this aid to shore up alliances, as in the case of... MORE