July 14 was the deadline for the registration of candidates in the 2020 Belarusian presidential election. In the meantime, the campaign has entered a baffling stage, whereby the electoral result to be announced on August 9 is exceedingly clear and, yet, feels like an impasse.... MORE

On July 6, the Russian shipbuilding complex Zvezda, LLC started construction on a Project 10510 (Lider) icebreaker. Upon its completion (scheduled for 2027), the first ship of this class, named the Rossiya and commissioned by the Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation (Rosatom), will become the... MORE

Russia’s presidential envoy for conflict-management in Ukraine, Dmitry Kozak, has unilaterally announced a pause in the Normandy negotiation process, pending “clarifications to Ukraine’s positions.” Kozak’s announcements concluded and followed the “Normandy” meeting (Germany, France, Russia, Ukraine), held on July 3–4, in Berlin, at the level... MORE

The end of June marked the beginning of a (likely brief) respite in Belarus’s presidential election campaign, but it may prove to be the lull before the storm. After the elimination of former deputy foreign minister and Minsk High-Tech Park founder Valery Tsepkalo’s candidacy because... MORE

Another critic of Chechnya’s pro-Moscow ruler Ramzan Kadyrov was killed in Austria. On the evening of July 4, the man was shot in the head and died in a parking lot next to a shopping center in the Vienna suburb of Gerasdorf. Initially, reports said... MORE

On May 27, the Ukrainian government preliminarily approved the text of a memorandum on the prospects for importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States. The document must still be signed by the Ukrainian side and the US company involved, the Lafayette-based Louisiana Natural... MORE

The multinational Rail Baltica project, which had been in the planning and design stages since 2014, finally entered the phase of actual construction of the railway line and related infrastructure objects at the beginning of last year (Railbaltica.org, accessed June 30). Work is already underway... MORE

For months, and particularly during the end of June and start of July, Russian politics was centered on ensuring the desired result in the vote on the set of amendments to the constitution. By resorting to crude manipulations and fraud, President Vladimir Putin secured his... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. Unlike Moldova’s former de facto ruler, Vladimir Plahotniuc (or president Vladimir Voronin before that), President Igor Dodon seems to have no intention and certainly lacks the capacity to institute a “power vertical.” The Socialist Party operates grass-roots organizations... MORE

Moldova’s russophile head of state, Igor Dodon, has been driven onto the defensive, along with his Socialist Party and the Socialist-led government, by their political opponents on several fronts. Opposition forces, acting separately for the time being and from different motivations (pro-Western, “oligarchic,” pro-Romania) seek... MORE