The Russian authorities are quite effective at responding to specific and immediate domestic challenges. However, like governments elsewhere, they are less capable of dealing with slower-moving tectonic shifts. And consequently, they often view these as even more disturbing when such developments suddenly take on public... MORE

July 20, 2019, marks the 25th anniversary of Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s rule. Unlike most post-Soviet national leaders, he had no background in the Soviet nomenklatura, rising to the helm of power from a state farm director and defeating the acting–prime minister, Viachaslau Kebich, a... MORE

In mid-June, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine (CCU) ruled that the snap parliamentary elections called by newly inaugurated President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would be scheduled for July 21 (Pravda.com.ua, June 20; see EDM, May 22). Recent polling, conducted by the sociological firm Rating, shows that 42.3... MORE

The vehicle ramming and knife attack carried out by three jihadists on London Bridge on June 3, 2017, killed eight people and injured 48, ending only when the police shot and killed the attackers. This was the third most fatal Islamist attack in the UK... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. The Romanian government’s multi-year bet on Vladimir Plahotniuc in Moldova collapsed when his personal power succumbed to internal and external challenges. Warning signs had pointed the way to this outcome, but Bucharest responded each time by doubling down... MORE

The common desire of Moscow and Beijing to develop railways linking Asia with Europe is not making as much progress as the two parties had hoped or as many had expected. This is due in part to international concerns involving third countries, including the Central... MORE

More than a year ago, the Russian “patriotic” newspaper Vzglyad shared a “discovery” extracted from a cross-tabulation of two public opinion surveys. One of them was by the French polling agency Institut Français d’Opinion Publique (IFOP) (RT, February 23, 2018) and the other by Pew... MORE

The internationally facilitated regime change in Moldova bypassed Romania entirely, in spite of Romania’s declared special interests toward its eastern neighbor. Bucharest found itself isolated in its support for Moldova’s kleptocratic, now-ousted ruler, Vladimir Plahotniuc, while Brussels and Washington were distancing themselves from him. By... MORE

On May 30, the Verkhovna Rada (national parliament) of Ukraine appealed to the United Nations, international parliamentary assemblies and foreign national legislatures to condemn ongoing violations of the rights of indigenous non-Russian peoples in the Russian Federation (Rada.gov.ua, May 30). The resolution was supported by... MORE

The Russian newspaper Izvestia announced, on June 19, that the country’s newest super-maneuverable fighter, the Su-35S (“Flanker-E” in the NATO classification), will soon be deployed to annexed Crimea. According to Izvestia, “The Su-35S is capable not only of guaranteed destruction of fifth-generation fighters, but also... MORE