Russian President Vladimir Putin has appointed Dmitry Kozak as deputy head of the presidential administration and principal representative for policy toward Ukraine, on top of Kozak’s continuing mission as presidential envoy for Moldovan affairs. Kozak will be handling the conflicts in Donbas and Transnistria, as... MORE

From Russia’s perspective, the conflicts it has itself instigated in the greater Black Sea region are strictly separate cases. Moscow regards the conflicts over Ukraine’s Crimea and Georgia’s Abkhazia and South Ossetia as settled and closed. By contrast, Russia seeks political settlements to the active... MORE

The Moldovan government, controlled by pro-Russian President Igor Dodon, is starting the new year with major economic concerns. A key agenda for officials is to ensure Dodon’s victory in the presidential elections, to be conducted at the end of 2020. To achieve this goal, the... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. The collapse of Moldova’s governing coalition (in office from June to November 2019) puts an end to joint governance by political and cultural opposites—an experiment unprecedented for fractured Moldova and without par in contemporary Europe (see Part One... MORE

On November 12, Moldovan President Igor Dodon’s Socialist Party joined forces with the opposition Democratic Party (formerly led by the now-fugitive tycoon Vladimir Plahotniuc) to overthrow the ACUM (“NOW”) bloc–led government of Prime Minister Maia Sandu in a parliamentary vote of no confidence (see EDM,... MORE

Today, on November 12, the pro-Russian Socialists’ Party of Moldova (PSRM) dismissed the reformist government in Chisinau led by Maia Sandu (Deutsche Welle—Romanian edition, November 12), following a no-confidence vote they initiated on Friday, November 8 (Deschide.md, November 8). In this effort, the PSRM was... MORE

Moldovan President Igor Dodon had an informal meeting, on November 3, with Vadim Krasnoselsky, the leader of the Russia-backed separatist region of Transnistria (Europalibera.org, November 4). Dodon is a pro-Russian politician and the de facto leader of Moldova’s Socialist Party (PSRM). The two reportedly met,... MORE

President Igor Dodon has effectively disavowed Moldova’s sponsorship of the United Nations General Assembly’s (UNGA) resolution, adopted one year ago at Chisinau’s initiative, that called for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Moldova’s Transnistria region. Addressing the UNGA on September 26 (Presedinte.md, accessed September 29),... MORE

The Kremlin has reason to celebrate as Russian foreign policy recently registered several significant successes across Europe’s East. First, following almost three decades of resistance, Belarus ostensibly agreed to a number of important joint institutions with Russia, pushing bilateral integration forward, with Minsk as the... MORE

Moldovan authorities engaged in a flurry of diplomatic activity over the last few weeks. This consisted of a particularly dense web of exchanges between Chisinau and Moscow, with only a few such threads connecting Chisinau and Brussels. The picture will soon be completed with one... MORE