The culmination of United States President Donald Trump’s European tour occurs today (July 16), in Helsinki, at the anxiously anticipated but far-from-perfectly prepared meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump comes to the rendezvous carrying the baggage of old problems and new controversies (see EDM,... MORE

On August 18, 2017, 22-year-old Abderrahman Bouanane, a Moroccan citizen, attacked pedestrians in the center of Turku, Finland's third largest city, armed with a knife. The incident was Finland’s first jihadist-inspired terrorist attack, and it might have received more coverage internationally had it not been... MORE

German support for Russia’s plans to double the capacity of the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea has, in turn, encouraged Bulgaria’s aspirations to develop a regional gas hub with Russian help. Sofia has been seeking a similar arrangement with Gazprom to... MORE

After the end of the Cold War, both the East and the West agreed they were no longer enemies, and Russian delegations regularly visited summits of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The last such delegation attended NATO’s Chicago Summit, in 2012, though it was... MORE

For Italy’s new and unusual ruling coalition composed of the 5 Stars Movement (5SM) and the League (previously, the Northern League), foreign policy issues remained conspicuously marginal in the two populist parties’ “contract of government” (Il Foglio, May 17). However, recent actions taken by their... MORE

Three implicitly interrelated events eclipsed all other developments in Belarus over the course of the past two weeks: Belarus’s Independence Day (July 3); the inauguration of the Maly Trostenets memorial (June 29); and, strangely enough, an off-the-cuff pronouncement by President Alyaksandr Lukashenka seemingly lamenting the... MORE

During June 18–28, Russia’s southern city of Novorossiysk (Krasnodar Krai) hosted the trilateral joint tactical military exercise Slavic Brotherhood 2018, at the Raevsky training center (Tvzvezda.ru, June 26). Observed by defense attachés from 42 countries, these drills were the largest international maneuvers of the Russian... MORE

The Russian navy has boosted its presence in the Sea of Azov to approximately 40 ships, giving it the ability to control that body of water and to strike virtually at will along Ukraine’s coastline there, Vadim Skibitsky, a representative of the main intelligence directorate... MORE

On June 25, the Supreme Court of the Republic of Moldova denied opposition candidate Andrei Nastase (leader of the Dignity and Truth Platform Party) legal recourse, thus upholding the June 21 decision of the Appellate Court to invalidate the mayoral elections in the capital Chisinau... MORE

A team of top-level Russian guests, including President Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and the heads of both chambers of the Russian parliament, Valentina Matvienko (Federation Council) and Viacheslav Volodin (State Duma), visited the Belarusian capital of Minsk, on June 19. This high-ranking delegation... MORE