Moscow-based commentators have long complained about the paucity of pro-Russia political parties in the former Soviet republics, especially around the time of elections or periods of instability there or when the Russian government has a specific agenda it hopes to promote in those countries. Consequently,... MORE

Russia is not pursuing an “Anschluss” with Belarus. Rather, it aims to curtail Belarus’s external and internal sovereignty in the foreign policy, military, economic, and domestic institutional realms, stopping short of a political union of Russia and Belarus. The outcome would not amount to an... MORE

Over nine weeks since the disputed Belarusian presidential election, and three weeks since President Alyaksandr Lukashenka held a secret inauguration ceremony, large street demonstrations in the country continue unabated. In the opinion of Gennady Korshunov, a former director of the Belarusian Institute of Sociology (he... MORE

The political difficulties and expenses Moscow will face if it seeks to more fully integrate Belarus (see EDM, September 10) are patently visible in the problems—albeit on a smaller scale—the Russian government has had over the past decade in its efforts regarding Abkhazia and South... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. For now, the Belarusian authorities are holding out confidently against regime change on both fronts: against the domestic opposition and against Russia’s initial regime-change project. The latter could be seen lurking behind the thwarted presidential candidacies of Valery... MORE

The Kremlin is conducting a regime-change operation in Belarus, the first-ever Russian operation of this type in its “near abroad.” Belarus’s presidential election campaign from May to August and the election‘s aftermath have provided the launching pad for this operation.  It is premised on the... MORE

Arriving at some clarity regarding the situation in Belarus has become harder than ever before. An unstable equilibrium begets a cacophony of opinions that do not lend themselves to generalization or to teasing out a common idea. Alexander Klaskovsky of Belapan writes, “[Presidents Alyaksandr] Lukashenka... MORE

Protests in Belarus and the fighting in Karabakh have upended relations between the Russian authorities and the leaders of Minsk and Yerevan. In the past, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, despite generally acting in conjunction with Moscow, have nonetheless tried... MORE

The sharp rise of COVID-19 infections in Russia in the last couple of weeks was predictable given the relatively high “plateau” of new cases over the summer after the sharp peak in early May. Yet the escalation of the pandemic has apparently caught the authorities... 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