On June 25, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Moldova denied opposition candidate Andrei Nastase (leader of the Dignity and Truth Platform Party) legal recourse, thus upholding the June 21 decision of the Appellate Court to invalidate the mayoral elections in the capital Chisinau... MORE

A team of top-level Russian guests, including President Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and the heads of both chambers of the Russian parliament, Valentina Matvienko (Federation Council) and Viacheslav Volodin (State Duma), visited the Belarusian capital of Minsk, on June 19. This high-ranking delegation... MORE

The second reading of Bill 8068 (Rada.gov.ua, accessed June 25), “On National Security,” successfully passed through Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada (parliament), with 248 votes in favor, thus providing a new framework law designed to overhaul the country’s statutory national security and defense architecture. The initial draft... MORE

Kuropaty, a patch of forest adjacent to the Minsk beltway, has been the venue of daily public protests against a newly commissioned restaurant since May 31. The land was the site of executions of innocent civilians by the Soviet secret police from 1937 to 1941.... MORE

On June 11, Azerbaijan unveiled its newly-acquired Polonez multiple-launch rocket systems (MLRS, with a range of 300 kilometers) and LORA ballistic missile complexes (400 km), purchased from Belarus and Israel, respectively. Both weapons systems are designed to target major military bases and operational facilities located... MORE

On June 11, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev showed off the Belarusian-produced Polonez multiple-launch rocket system (MLRS) and the Israeli-made LORA tactical ballistic missile system (President.az, June 11). The delivery of these rocket and missile systems from Belarus and Israel have military, political and psychological implications... MORE

Every year, on April 26, the Belarusian opposition organizes a “Chernobyl Path Rally” (CPR), devoted to commemorating the 1986 nuclear power plant disaster, which ultimately deposited 70 percent of its leaked radionuclides on Belarusian territory. This year, no more than 500 participants marched from the... MORE

Last month (May 2018), the Russian Federation lost an important lawsuit lodged against it by “Everest Estate LLC and Others,” 18 Ukrainian companies that had held assets in Crimea prior to Moscow’s illegal annexation of this peninsula in early 2014. The Permanent Court of Arbitration... MORE

On June 7, Ukraine’s parliament passed a long-awaited bill to establish an anti-corruption court, and President Petro Poroshenko promptly signed it into law four days later. The anti-corruption court is supposed to be the last link in the chain of bodies designed to fight top-level... MORE

Russian activity in the Sea of Azov has been ramping up considerably in recent weeks. After the official opening of the Kerch Strait Bridge, on May 16 (see EDM, June 1), Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) started carrying out systematic boarding and inspections of vessels... MORE