World leaders rarely publish their visions of current affairs in the form of essays, but President Vladimir Putin developed a habit since returning to the Kremlin in 2012. His latest treatise, “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” stands out among his other works... MORE

Russia has done almost nothing to help Igor Dodon’s Socialist Party and other Russophile forces in Moldova’s recent parliamentary elections. The Kremlin and its propaganda apparatus kept silent; and the Russian government offered no economic handouts or promises to Moldova’s Socialist-backed government during the electoral... MORE

On July 6, a Belarusian court handed a 14-year prison sentence to Victor Babariko (BelTA, July 6), perhaps President Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s strongest political rival. Babariko was arguably best positioned to actually win a would-be free and fair presidential election against the incumbent, if he had... MORE

On July 1, Lithuanian Energy Minister Dainius Kreivys paid a visit to Mazeikiai oil refinery (the only refinery in the Baltic States; fully owned by the Polish oil and natural gas major PKN ORLEN) to meet with ORLEN management. The parties signed a letter of... MORE

Moldova’s pre-term parliamentary elections, on July 11, have produced an even more sweeping sea change than anticipated (see EDM, July 8, 9). The Western-oriented opposition, concentrated in the Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS), surged to 53 percent of the votes cast. PAS has dethroned... MORE

On June 24, Russia’s state-owned oil transit system operator Transneft announced that hydrocarbon producers Rosneft and Surgutneftgaz had not reserved any pipeline volumes for transporting oil to the Belarusian refinery Naftan for the third quarter of 2021 (TASS, June 24). Transneft’s announcement did not come... MORE

*To Read Part One, please click here. The Electoral Bloc of Communists and Socialists (BECS) would probably nominate Igor Dodon (Moldova’s president in 2016–2020) as the next prime minister, if BECS wins the snap parliamentary elections, scheduled to take place on Sunday, July 11. Dodon’s... MORE

Moldova could break out from its cycle of political instability and economic decay, provided that President Maia Sandu’s creation, the Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS), gains an outright parliamentary majority on its own in the July 11 elections. That scenario mainly depends on a... MORE

After the introduction of sectoral sanctions by the European Union (see EDM, June 30), Minsk suspended its membership in the Eastern Partnership initiative as well as in the Readmission Agreement with the EU. Belarus’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also recommended that the head of the... MORE

The summit in Geneva between Presidents Joseph Biden of the United States and Vladimir Putin of Russia was supposed to stabilize bilateral relations by demarcating areas and issues each side deemed so important that any hostile incursion would encounter a strong response. In the present-day... MORE