*To read Part One, please click here. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov is content with the resumption of the quadrilateral (Ukraine, Russia, France, Germany) Normandy process and the direction it seems to be taking (see Part One). The outlook, according to Peskov, is “not bad at... MORE

On January 26, in Paris, senior political advisors to the Russian, Ukrainian, German and French heads of state and government convened to “reanimate” (such is the term in circulation) the quadrilateral “Normandy” process of consultations. The meeting, lasting eight and a half hours (almost twice... MORE

When the 2022 Winter Olympics open in Beijing on February 4, Russian President Vladimir Putin will be a guest of honor. Russia remains technically banned from Olympic participation due to doping violations, but as with the 2021 (2020) Tokyo games, Russian athletes will compete as... MORE

On January 22, civil society activists from the The Shame Movement and multiple other pro-Western non-governmental organizations (NGO) gathered near the Embassy of Ukraine in Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi. While the rally was joined by many public figures and representatives of political parties, not a single... MORE

The Christian Turkic Gagauz minority in southeastern Moldova typically attracts attention only when the Kremlin seeks to use it, in combination with Transnistria, to pursue Russian interests. Those objectives are most often to put pressure on Chisinau to prevent or derail Moldova’s turn to the... MORE

On Wednesday, January 26, the United States’ ambassador in Moscow, John Sullivan, personally delivered a memorandum to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs containing the official US reply to earlier Russian demands on security guarantees. Simultaneously, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) handed over to... MORE

The Russian-Belarusian large-scale military exercise Soyuznaya Reshimost (Allied Resolve) 2022 forms a critical dimension in Moscow’s war planning against Ukraine (see EDM, January 20). The Union State exercise, scheduled for February 10–20, will reportedly take place in the western and southern border areas of Belarus,... MORE

As tensions between Russia and Ukraine continued to rise, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev flew to Kyiv ten days ago (January 14) to meet with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. After their talks, the two leaders called for expanded cooperation in all spheres, including economics, transportation... MORE

A group of Russian landing ships, three of which left the Baltic Sea region on January 18, preceded by another three the day before, have passed the English Channel and entered to the Atlantic Ocean. The half dozen warships comprise the large Ropucha-class (Project 775)... MORE

The guns have so far remained silent on the snow-covered Russian-Ukrainian border, but there is certainly no peace there; a rather unusual war is in progress. It is unlike any other wars waged by Russia under the lengthy rule of President Vladimir Putin, who began... MORE