For weeks leading up to May 9, Russian President Vladimir Putin was widely expected to announce a major decision during the annual Victory Day military parade on the Red Square. Over the years, he had altered the meaning of this holiday, from celebrating the Allied... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin miscalculated again when he stopped natural gas shipments to Poland and Bulgaria on April 27. Now Russia appears to have lost the gas markets in both countries as they are preparing to permanently wean themselves from Russian energy supplies. The official... MORE

Russian combat losses in Ukraine, problems with this year’s spring draft, trouble recruiting volunteers, and difficulties in forcing soldiers to fight abroad in the absence of a declaration of war are prompting ever more questions about how sustainable Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine... MORE

In early April, high-level Italian and French delegations traveled separately to Azerbaijan to discuss cooperation in the energy sector, including natural gas exports and “green” electricity generated from Caspian-basin wind (Minenergy.gov.az, April 2, 8). The twin visits occurred against the background of mounting anxieties about... MORE

In Warsaw, on April 26, the head of the non-governmental organization Belarusian Analytical Workroom, Andrei Vardomatsky, described the outcome of his group’s telephone poll of 1,000 Belarusians conducted in mid-March. Of those surveyed, just 24 percent pinned responsibility for sparking the war in Ukraine on... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here. Russia’s aggression against Ukraine pushed the world’s largest, most advanced economies to introduce several rounds of economic sanctions against the Russian Federation (Meduza, March 8). Russia’s energy sector (a key pillar of... MORE

On April 27, Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev promoted Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Norov to the position of first deputy foreign minister and assigned him the responsibilities of the foreign minister of the country. Despite reports of deteriorating health, the outgoing foreign minister, Abdulaziz Kamilov, 74,... MORE

Following the start of Russia’s large-scale military re-invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, concerns arose about the role that the Transnistrian region of Moldova could play in the Kremlin’s war plans. The territory has been under Russian military occupation since 1992, with Moscow’s military, security... MORE

As Russian losses in Ukraine mount and resistance in the Russian army to being deployed there increases (Mediazona [1] [2], April 6), Moscow faces growing difficulties with mobilizing soldiers to fill the gaps. This problem is especially acute in places where the funerals of those... MORE

On April 22, General Rustam Minnekayev, the acting commander of the Central Military District, announced that one of the goals of the second phase of Russia’s “special military operation in Ukraine” is to gain full control of Donbas and Ukraine’s south. According to him, achieving... MORE