During the summer months, Moldova’s still-strong Communist Party threatened to stage what it terms a “velvet revolution” by October, so as to derail the conclusion of Moldova’s association agreements with the European Union. The “Red October’s” minimal goal is to pre-empt the association agreements’ conclusion,... MORE

A seemingly perpetual tension between Western universalism on human rights and down-to-earth geopolitics has no single resolution. With regard to Belarus, human rights remain preeminent albeit with the exception of the 2007–2010 period, during which a rapprochement between Brussels and Minsk was underway. But in... MORE

On September 19, a roundtable on inter-ethnic relations took place in Simferopol, Crimea. At this gathering, the European Union’s Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighborhood Policy Stefan Fule met with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara and other members of Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers, deputies of... MORE

This week (September 23), the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), held a summit in President Vladimir Putin’s Black Sea residence in Sochi. The Russian-led military alliance is made up of several post-Soviet republics—Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan. Russia’s allies supported Moscow’s stand on... MORE

At the September 19 government “skull session” on current economic and foreign policy issues, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka made several statements devoted to the Belarusian-Russian potash war. “No rogues and scoundrels will be able to drive a wedge between the two presidents and the two peoples... MORE

Moscow’s imposition of a wine embargo against Moldova as part of the Russian effort to dissuade Chisinau from pursuing closer ties with the European Union is not working as the Russians had hoped. In fact, Moldova had been exporting only about a quarter of its... MORE

Recent events around Belarus create the impression that if one assumes Belarus is a bridge between the two flanks of Europe, the traffic on that bridge is asymmetric. Serious business comes from its eastern end and nothing but reprimands and exhortations originate from the west.... MORE

The prime minister of the Republic of Belarus, Mikhail Myasnikovich, led a large delegation September 3–5, on the first state visit to Mongolia since the establishment of bilateral diplomatic relations in 1992. The Mongolian government treated the visit as high level, and media coverage was... MORE

The Belarusian-Russian potassium (potash) war has undergone several new developments. First, it appears that Uralkalii, a Russian potash producer that, in late July, left the joint Russian-Belarusian trader, Belarusian Potassium Company (BPC) (see EDM August 5, September 4), has insured its “management responsibility” risk. Its... MORE

The Russian Navy has decided to deploy three ships stationed at the base in Sevastopol on Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula to its reestablished Mediterranean flotilla. In particular, on September 4, Moscow deployed the destroyer Smetliviy (https://www.interfax.ru/world/news.asp?id=326972). Some Sevastopol-based ships actually sailed for the Mediterranean via Novorossiysk,... MORE