Following United States Secretary of State Michael Pompeo’s Saturday (October 24) morning call to Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka (Belta, October 24), the international dimension of the situation in Belarus has grown even more intricate. According to reporting by the Telegram channel “Poole One,” “Lukashenka described... MORE

Moldova is holding its quadrennial presidential election on November 1, with a likely runoff on November 15 between the two leading contenders: the Socialist incumbent President Igor Dodon and challenger Maia Sandu, the leader of the Action and Solidarity Party in the parliamentary opposition (see... MORE

The conflict between Ukraine and combined Russian-separatist forces in Donbas (a region encompassing the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces), which erupted in 2014, has damaged one of the largest water delivery systems in Europe’s East. Water shortages and poor water quality are worsening an already difficult... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here. *To read Part Three, please click here. President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has, in practice, achieved and maintained sovereignty in military affairs for Belarus vis-à-vis Russia (see below). These gains—for Belarus and neighboring... MORE

“Moralizing About Coronavirus Policy Does Not Stop Coronavirus,” reads one August headline in Bloomberg. So can moralizing about the Belarusian crisis help bring about an agreeable solution? The European Union’s leaders seemingly think so, at least judging from their non-stop condemnations of Belarusian authorities, intent... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here. Russia’s interests in Belarus at this stage may be categorized as status quo–oriented interests and those going beyond the status quo; the latter category clearly prevails in the political, institutional, and... MORE

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s recent lengthy interview (Komsomolskaya Pravda, October 14) stirred deep concerns in the Republic of Moldova. Local media outlets underlined, in particular, Lavrov’s accusation that the United States is attempting to create “an abscess” in Moldova by pushing for the total... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. Regime change via constitutional reform is Moscow’s chosen avenue toward its goal in Belarus: turning the country into a satellite of Russia, stopping short of outright incorporation (see Part One in EDM, October 15). At this stage, however,... MORE

Moscow-based commentators have long complained about the paucity of pro-Russia political parties in the former Soviet republics, especially around the time of elections or periods of instability there or when the Russian government has a specific agenda it hopes to promote in those countries. Consequently,... MORE

Russia is not pursuing an “Anschluss” with Belarus. Rather, it aims to curtail Belarus’s external and internal sovereignty in the foreign policy, military, economic, and domestic institutional realms, stopping short of a political union of Russia and Belarus. The outcome would not amount to an... MORE