Three sets of law enforcement actions recently administered in Belarus help to shed light on what rule of law means in this country. Thus, on July 4, Alexander Knyrovich, the CEO of SarmatThermo-Engineering, a company that makes heating network pipes, was sentenced to six years... MORE

Three implicitly interrelated events eclipsed all other developments in Belarus over the course of the past two weeks: Belarus’s Independence Day (July 3); the inauguration of the Maly Trostenets memorial (June 29); and, strangely enough, an off-the-cuff pronouncement by President Alyaksandr Lukashenka seemingly lamenting the... MORE

During June 18–28, Russia’s southern city of Novorossiysk (Krasnodar Krai) hosted the trilateral joint tactical military exercise Slavic Brotherhood 2018, at the Raevsky training center (Tvzvezda.ru, June 26). Observed by defense attachés from 42 countries, these drills were the largest international maneuvers of the Russian... MORE

A team of top-level Russian guests, including President Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and the heads of both chambers of the Russian parliament, Valentina Matvienko (Federation Council) and Viacheslav Volodin (State Duma), visited the Belarusian capital of Minsk, on June 19. This high-ranking delegation... MORE

Kuropaty, a patch of forest adjacent to the Minsk beltway, has been the venue of daily public protests against a newly commissioned restaurant since May 31. The land was the site of executions of innocent civilians by the Soviet secret police from 1937 to 1941.... MORE

On June 11, Azerbaijan unveiled its newly-acquired Polonez multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS, with a range of 300 kilometers) and LORA ballistic missile complexes (400 km), purchased from Belarus and Israel, respectively. Both weapons systems are designed to target major military bases and operational facilities located... MORE

On June 11, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev showed off the Belarusian-produced Polonez multiple-launch rocket system (MLRS) and the Israeli-made LORA tactical ballistic missile system (President.az, June 11). The delivery of these rocket and missile systems from Belarus and Israel have military, political and psychological implications... MORE

Every year, on April 26, the Belarusian opposition organizes a “Chernobyl Path Rally” (CPR), devoted to commemorating the 1986 nuclear power plant disaster, which ultimately deposited 70 percent of its leaked radionuclides on Belarusian territory. This year, no more than 500 participants marched from the... MORE

In many ways, contemporary Belarus bears less and less resemblance to the persistent but worn narratives about this country. And three choice developments from the past several weeks illustrate this point in various telling ways. First, it is worth examining Yury Zisser’s recent publicized contention... MORE

In his May 24 speech at the Minsk Dialogue forum, “Eastern Europe: In Search of Security for All,” President Alyaksandr Lukashenka reminded that Belarus came forward with the initiative to launch a new large-scale international dialogue on security that should strive to overcome existing disagreements... MORE