Recently, there has been an uptick in Russian efforts to defend the placement of nuclear-capable weapons, if not actual nuclear weapons, on Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed one year ago. Notably, TU-22M3 long-range bombers, which would be able to carry and deliver such... MORE

On March 17, the Russian and Kyrgyzstani services of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) published a long interview with a citizen of Kyrgyzstan identified as Manas (not his real name), who said he had fought alongside the Moscow-backed pro-Russia separatists in the Luhansk region of... MORE

European Union officials hope that among the outcomes of the upcoming May 2015 Eastern Partnership (EaP) summit in Riga will be a new and more flexible cooperation framework for redefining the EU’s relations with Armenia and other neighboring countries. Indeed, Latvia, which currently holds the... MORE

On March 18, Russia marked the first anniversary of the annexation of Crimea. The extent of the celebrations in southern Russia varied dramatically, according to Kavkazsky Uzel news agency reporters who were on the scene. Twenty people gathered for celebrations in Sochi, but about 13,000... MORE

President Petro Poroshenko’s continued ownership of a confectionary manufacturing facility in Lipetsk, Russia, has become such a political burden for the Ukrainian leader that he specifically addressed the issue of its sale in an exclusive TV interview earlier this month (March 2015) (TSN, March 13).... MORE

The postponed Russia-Belarus-Kazakhstan summit took place last Friday (March 20) in Astana, but the program was cut so short that the only point for staging the event appeared to be to confirm President Vladimir Putin’s return to business as usual (Kommersant, March 21). Presidents Nursultan... MORE

The March 10–14 visit by Azerbaijani Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov to Croatia and Slovenia attracted little attention in the local media. However, various background developments in the wake of these meetings—held to discuss the potential directions of bilateral military cooperation (Mod.gov.az, March 11)—suggest that the... MORE

The word “Belarus” brings to mind few, if any, specific connotations for many in the West. Until recently, they did not associate significant positive developments with that country. But now, this situation is changing. One clearly significant development is the country’s growing export of software... MORE

On March 20, Ukraine, the European Union and Russia plan to negotiate Gazprom’s natural gas deliveries to Ukraine after March 31, when the “winter package,” which was agreed upon at trilateral talks last October, expires (Eurointegration.com.ua, March 17). Russia says there is no need for... MORE

For those long-accustomed to the idea that the situation in the former Soviet space resembles that of France, where an education minister once famously claimed that he could say at any moment just which line of poetry French students across the country were studying, the... MORE