Not only beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In the absence of attention-grabbing cataclysms, the most talked about issue related to Belarus depends on who you ask. Thus, ordinary Belarusians are mostly preoccupied with price hikes, the cost of utilities in particular, and... MORE

In late July 2017, the Ukrainian non-governmental advisory organization Reanimation Package of Reforms (RPR) called on President Petro Poroshenko and the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) to immediately reform the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU). The authors of the RPR letter asserted that the... MORE

After illegally annexing Crimea in 2014, Russia declared it would build a 12-mile-long road-and-rail bridge across the Kerch Strait, connecting mainland Russia to the occupied Crimean Peninsula. And last year (2016), with construction underway, Moscow officials promised that the building of this massive bridge would... MORE

The upcoming Zapad 2017 joint exercise by Russian and Belarusian troops in Belarus has sparked concerns that it may be used by Moscow either to carry out a hybrid revolution in Belarus—along the lines of what Vladimir Putin did in Crimea in 2014—or to put... MORE

Russia’s strategic military exercises frequently arouse varying levels of interest in the Western media and the analytical community. The bilateral Belarus-Russia Zapad 2017 (September 14–20), however, has witnessed unprecedented attention and speculation concerning Moscow’s political-military intentions. The Armed Forces of both countries participating in the... MORE

Historically, naval mines played an important role in maritime warfare in the Black Sea. Spurred on by lessons learned during World War I and World War II, the Soviet Black Sea Fleet deployed considerable numbers of offensive and defensive mines in the Black Sea littoral... MORE

Two developments have been dominating discussions in Belarus in recent weeks. The first of these took place in Grosseto, Italy. On July 21, Violetta Skvortsova of Belarus won the triple jump at Europe’s junior track-and-field championship. During the awards ceremony, the organizers played the anthem... MORE

Moldova is a landlocked country, but unbeknownst to many, it has an international port on the Danube that is accessible to seagoing vessels. The Port of Giurgiulești (some 130 kilometers from the Black Sea) presents large economic opportunities as well as significant security vulnerabilities. These... MORE

Minsk is winning over Belarus’s neighbors. “We have stabilized our relations with Belarus… Today, there is no ideological war between our countries,” declared Witold Waszczykowski, the Polish minister of foreign affairs. This statement is impressive, particularly against the backdrop of Poland’s relations with Ukraine, which... MORE

July 22 marked the end of the 12-day Sea Breeze 2017 exercise (UNIAN, July 25), conducted in the Black Sea and on Ukrainian territory with the participation of Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Georgia, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom... MORE