Despite some disruptions to this year’s military training schedule caused by the COVID-19 pandemic (see EDM, April 21, 22), the Russian Armed Forces are preparing to hold their annual capstone strategic-operational exercise on September 15–26. “Kavkaz 2020” (“Caucasus 2020”) will feature large-scale drills spread across... MORE

Five weeks of peaceful mass protests in Belarus after the falsified elections on August 9, have profoundly changed this formerly rather stable and conservative country, impressed its European neighbors, and set a sharp challenge for Russia, which is tied to this partner in a peculiar... MORE

On August 28, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka threatened to redirect all of his country’s trade flows as well as the transit of foreign goods across its territory from Lithuanian ports to Ust-Luga and Primorsk, in Russia’s Leningrad Oblast, if Europe were to impose anti-Belarus sanctions... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   Regime change remains Moscow’s political objective in Belarus (see Part One). This is defined as easing out President Alyaksandr Lukashenka with his assent, as part of an internal constitutional settlement. Russia wants this settlement to be negotiated... MORE

What looks to the world as another “color revolution,” this time in Belarus after the August 9 presidential election, outgrew and overwhelmed an initial Russian operation against the disobedient President Alyaksandr Lukashenka. The unforeseen, spontaneous popular protests against electoral fraud have compelled Moscow to change... MORE

Belarus is not Ukraine either now or should Moscow try to annex it, Russian analysts are warning. It is far more integrated as a society than Ukraine is, with far fewer regional, linguistic or even religious divisions than exist in Ukraine; and it is far... MORE

Alexei Dzermant is a Belarusian champion of closer amalgamation with Russia and the author of the upcoming book Belarus-Eurasia: Borderland of Europe and Russia. “There is one thing the white-red-whites ought to be appreciated for,” he writes, “Their active role in this political crisis has... MORE

Commentators in Russia and the West have often focused on the geopolitics of the Belarusian situation, arguing that Moscow wants a friendly regime in Belarus in order to expand its military presence there and thus be in a position to project power into Central Europe... MORE

Russia traditionally returns to normal work, after a summer break, on September 1. This year, however, although schools reopened as usual, broader public and political life persisted on its earlier course of disarray and downturn. In his televised address to schoolchildren, President Vladimir Putin spoke... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. Elements of the Transnistria conflict-conservation model are taking shape in Ukraine’s Donbas conflict theater, with moves to recast Russia’s state-on-state aggression as an inner-Ukrainian conflict. The July 22 enhanced ceasefire agreement and the preconditions just confirmed for holding... MORE