Belarusian Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Kravchenko visited Washington and held meetings at the US State Department and the Senate. He also participated in the May 9 roundtable discussion “Between East and West: Belarus at a Crossroads,” organized by the Atlantic Council and The Jamestown Foundation.... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. Aiming for progress on the political implementation of the Minsk armistice (“to which we have no alternative”) was not the ambition of German Chancellor Angela Merkel when embarking on her visit to Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi... MORE

German Chancellor Angela Merkel took the initiative to visit Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on May 2. The German agenda included preparations for the upcoming G-20 summit in Germany (where the presidents of Russia and the United States will meet), the situation in Syria... MORE

After the crackdown on the March 25 rally in Minsk, the main Belarusian daily Belarus Segodnya published an extensive report devoted to the White Legion, a group of young vigilantes under the guidance of Sergei Chislov, a graduate of Minsk Higher Engineering Anti-Aircraft Missile School... MORE

Stereotypes reduce the complexity of the world into a few simple guidelines, which can enter everyday thoughts and decisions. For years, Belarus has been repeatedly labeled “Europe’s last dictatorship,” thus inhibiting deeper and more serious analysis of the country. Moreover, fighting this stereotype can prove... MORE

Since April 18, the news in Minsk has been preoccupied with how an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ Directorate for Combating Organized Crime stole $269,150 in cash from a safe at work. This money had earlier been seized by the Directorate from some... MORE

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s official visit to Iran in early March 2017—his third in three years—was scheduled to include the testing of a section of a new railway along the Iran-Azerbaijan border. The Astara (Iran)–Astara (Azerbaijan) railroad is part of the North–South Transport Corridor (NSTC),... MORE

“Despite the declared truce, our forces have lost several [the exact number depends on the day] soldiers, several others have been wounded over the past day… Notwithstanding the casualties, the Ukrainian army has not returned fire.” This is how a typical daily press release put... MORE

Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili traveled to Ukraine on March 27, meeting with the host country’s President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman. The visit occurred within the framework of a GUAM summit. GUAM, a loose economic and political cooperation organization, brings together Georgia,... MORE

As the month of March came to a close, Russia conducted a series of unprecedented land, air and sea drills at the “Opuk” combat training area, located near the city of Theodosia, in annexed Crimea. These coordinated exercises, involving thousands of troops, notably marked the... MORE