It is unusual for the Moldovan Ministry of Defense to publicly disavow statements of top officials from the United States. Yet this is exactly what the ministry did on its social media account, implicitly contradicting the words of Avril Haines, the US Director of National... MORE

Russia’s widely anticipated campaign to push Ukrainian military forces out of the administrative borders of the Donbas region (Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts) has not resulted in any effort to mount a major ground offensive. Despite several weeks of apparent preparations, including artillery fires across the... MORE

While the Belarusian opposition insists that President Alyaksandr Lukashenka is unworthy of attention because he no longer has anything to offer to the collective West (YouTube, May 2), opposition leader and 2020 presidential candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya is seen navigating the corridors of power in Europe... MORE

Moscow may be drawing most of its conscripts for the war in Ukraine from ethnic minority regions such as Buryatia and Dagestan (see EDM, May 4), but there appears to be a wartime division of labor amongst the voluntarist Cossack movement as well. In particular,... MORE

At present, Moscow can move ships, including the naval vessels of the Caspian Flotilla, between the Caspian Sea and the Sea of Azov for only about eight months out of the year because of low water levels in the Volga–Don Canal. However, because of the... MORE

The Russian Armed Forces are apparently readying for the potential use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In April, a large number of vacancies for contract military service members appeared on Russian job search websites, but one posting stood out—a call for a commander of... MORE

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