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Latest Articles about Europe's East
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Lukashenka Utilizes All-Belarusian People’s Assembly to Secure Legacy and Prevent Belarusian Gorbachev
Executive Summary: On April 24 and 25, the seventh convocation of the All-Belarusian People’s Assembly (OBPA), the primary organ of state power in Belarus, assembled in Minsk. Lukashenka views the OBPA as a preemptive measure against the rise of a Gorbachev-like post-Lukashenka era and as... MORE
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Cossacks Form New Reserve Army in Russian Push Toward Chasiv Yar
Executive Summary: Russia passed legislation creating a Cossack “mobilization reserve,” a reflection of Moscow’s broader efforts to use the state-registered Cossack movement as a recruitment tool for the war in Ukraine. The Cossacks loyal to the Kremlin are playing an increasingly active role in Russia’s... MORE
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Russia and Belarus War-Game Nuclear Attack on Ukraine and Eastern Europe
Executive Summary: The deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus is a political signal to unnerve the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) easternmost member states and a practical preparation for nuclear escalation. Russia’s storage of nuclear warheads on Belarusian territory suggests that the Kremlin... MORE
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Ethnically Non-Russian Formations in Russia’s War on Ukraine: North Caucasus
Executive Summary: To avoid mass mobilization, Moscow has called on Russian regions to start forming “volunteer battalions” to assist and even act in place of the regular armed forces. Battalions have formed in the North Caucasus, a region that suffered disproportionately high losses at the... MORE
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Russia Determined to Take Over Moldova or Break It (Part Two)
Executive Summary: Russia’s agenda in Moldova is an extension of Moscow’s war in Ukraine and its policy to re-expand into the intermediate zone between Russia and the West. The Kremlin’s top priority is to derail Moldova’s candidacy for EU membership by replacing the current government... MORE
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Belarus’s Strategy to Avoid War
Executive Summary: Belarus is maneuvering to avoid being dragged directly into the hostilities in Ukraine, which has become Minsk’s main strategy since allowing Russian forces to launch the expanded invasion from Belarusian territory. Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka stated: “Can we do it? No, we cannot”... MORE
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Russia Determined to Take Over Moldova or Break It (Part One)
Executive Summary: Leaders of Moldova’s Russophile parties recently launched a new political bloc at a congress in Moscow, heavily covered by Russian state media. The Kremlin aims to replace Moldova’s Western-oriented leadership with one loyal to Russia, ruling out the former model of Moldova balancing... MORE
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Ukrainians Increasingly Taking War Behind Russian Lines—and Moscow Is Worried
Executive Summary: Neither Russia nor Ukraine will win or lose the war solely based on what happens at the front, rather, both Moscow and Kyiv seek to bring the war home to the other to gain an advantage. Each has attacked the other with bombs... MORE
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Ukraine Strengthens Mobilization as War Presses On
Executive Summary: The Ukrainian government passed a controversial law to strengthen mobilization as the military’s need to recruit soldiers grows in the face of an anticipated Russian offensive. As the war continues, Kyiv may have to turn to more extreme measures, such as mobilizing its... MORE
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Ukraine’s ‘De-Naftification’ of Russia (Part Two)
Executive Summary: The provision of US-made ATACMS and other Western long-range capabilities looks to enable Ukraine to strike military targets in Russian-occupied Crimea. The passage of the long-delayed US aid package has given Kyiv’s other Western partners momentum to commit more support to Ukraine as... MORE