On January 25, the government of the Russian Federation adopted a draft version of a bilateral agreement with Belarus on the diversion of some Belarusian refined oil product exports from the Baltic States’ transshipment terminals to Russian seaports (TASS, January 27). At first glance, the... MORE

Thirty years ago tomorrow (January 13), Soviet forces fired at unarmed Lithuanians in Vilnius, killing 15 and thereby accelerating the recovery of the full independence of the Baltic countries as well as the demise of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Both the details... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. Visiting Lithuania and Latvia on September 28–30, French President Emmanuel Macron communicated a complex message. On one hand, he reassured both countries of France’s intention to continue participating in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) missions in the... MORE

French President Emmanuel Macron’s meeting with Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouska in Lithuania turned out to be even less than a side-show: a half-hour private meeting, without a joint public appearance (BNS, Agence France Presse, September 28, 29). Instead, Russia loomed large on Macron’s agenda... MORE

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak announced, on September 7, that Russia and Belarus are negotiating conditions for shifting Belarusian oil product exports from the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda to Russian transshipment terminals on the Baltic Sea, with an agreement expected in the next several weeks... MORE

In the whirl of the Belarusian protests this summer, decision makers in Minsk and neighboring states have been forced to respond to the repercussions of the political protests even as they try to identify any potential opportunities that have arisen because of them. One such... MORE

On August 28, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka threatened to redirect all of his country’s trade flows as well as the transit of foreign goods across its territory from Lithuanian ports to Ust-Luga and Primorsk, in Russia’s Leningrad Oblast, if Europe were to impose anti-Belarus sanctions... MORE

Commentators in Russia and the West have often focused on the geopolitics of the Belarusian situation, arguing that Moscow wants a friendly regime in Belarus in order to expand its military presence there and thus be in a position to project power into Central Europe... MORE

The ministers of foreign affairs of Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine held a trilateral meeting in the southeastern Polish city of Lublin, on July 28, to discuss regional cooperation (Gov.pl, July 28). To pursue such future development, the officials notably established the “Lublin Triangle,” a new... MORE

The ongoing presidential campaign in Belarus has been dominating news flows from that country so much that it is hard to believe anything else noteworthy could be happening. Yet, a number of crucial non-election developments also came to the fore in recent weeks. The Belarusian... MORE