While Russia and Belarus made final preparations to kick off their quadrennial joint strategic-operational exercise Zapad 2021, the two countries’ air-defense and air force units were put on joint duty as part of the recently established training and combat center in Grodno Oblast, in western... MORE

The outcome of Russia’s crudely manipulated parliamentary elections on September 17–19 was never in question: the Kremlin executed extra-rigid control over the campaigning and vote counting. But it was somewhat surprising to see how far the authorities would ultimately go to crush the supporters of... MORE

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is reverting to his earlier, forlorn hopes of improving relation with Russia through a personal meeting with President Vladimir Putin. The Ukrainian president is eager to meet Putin “any time, any place”—whether bilaterally or in the framework of a “Normandy” summit... MORE

The massive, Russo-Belarusian Zapad 2021 operational-strategic war games have ended. The scenario of this year’s iteration of Zapad (September 10–16) envisaged an attack on the Russo-Belarusian Union State by a hostile outside force depicted as the fictitious “Polar Republic.” The invaders were eventually defeated and... MORE

The principal outcome of the Russian-Belarusian summit on September 9 was the announcement that all 28 “roadmaps”—now called “Union State Programs”—have finally been endorsed. Russian President Vladimir Putin disclosed that the agreed documents deal with the integration of Russia’s and Belarus’s currency systems (but short... MORE

On September 10, the project company Nord Stream 2 AG informed that the last weld has been finished, making the Nord Stream Two natural gas pipeline fully complete from a technical perspective (Nord-stream2.com, September 10). At the same time, speculation in the media began to... MORE

After the West extended additional sanctions against Belarus and following Belarusian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s big press conference on August 9, the Kremlin began signaling its readiness to implement the so-called Armenian model to resolve the political crisis in the country. During Lukashenka’s press conference last... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. The Joint Statement on the US-Ukraine Strategic Partnership was released during President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Washington visit (Whitehouse.gov, President.gov.ua, September 1), but surprisingly it carries no signatures. This document’s two direct predecessors, in 2008 and 2018, respectively, had been... MORE

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) has begun massive Zapad 2021 operational-strategic war games together with its smallish ally Belarus. The quadrennial Zapad (“West”) exercises are designed to test the ability of a joint Russo-Belarus military force to defend the Russo-Belarus Union State against enemies,... MORE

The political crisis in Belarus seems to have entered the stage of unstable equilibrium both inside the country and along its perimeter. A system in this position accelerates away from steadiness if displaced even slightly. As Yauhenii Preiherman, who heads the Minsk Dialogue platform, opined,... MORE