According to the March 2013 national survey by IISEPS, a polling firm funded by the West, the opposition is trusted by 13.1 percent of Belarusians (https://iiseps.org/old/press7.html). Internecine fights within the opposition are one of the reasons for this low rating. Their past fights, however, pale... MORE

The Barack Obama Administration’s first-term “reset” of the United States’ relations with Russia set in motion a trend in Europe. A number of European governments have adapted the US-Russia “reset” model to their specific situations, initiating similar processes bilaterally with Russia. In Western Europe, such... MORE

Four years ago, Russia conducted an exercise called Zapad (West) 2009 to test the efficacy of its, then, new military reforms as well as its doctrine and strategy. Today, that exercise is most remembered for its culmination, namely the simulation of a tactical nuclear strike... MORE

While the Customs Union between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan is seeking to expand its membership, paving the way for the gradual incorporation of the Kyrgyz Republic and Ukraine into its integration orbit, opposition in these countries to the Eurasian integration project has been steadily rising.Several... MORE

Russian Gazprom was poised to take over Greece’s Public Gas Corporation (DEPA), but has withdrawn from the tender literally on the last possible day. The final, binding offer was due to be submitted on June 10, but it did not arrive. Instead, Gazprom claims that... MORE

Croatia is set to join the European Union as a full member on July 1. This makes Croatia a more attractive object of Russian energy interests. The head of Zarubezhneft (Nikolai Brunich, who has in the meantime taken over as chief of Transneft) visited Zagreb... MORE

When writing about xenophobia and racism, Western scholarly and media writing about Ukraine inevitably focuses on Western Ukraine and the rise of the Svoboda nationalist party. But in fact, Council of Europe reports, the United States’ diplomatic cables from Kyiv (released by Wikileaks), annual reports... MORE

In his essay, “A Map of the World: The Return of Geopolitics,” Sergei Karaganov, a Russian pundit, analyzes the newly acquired legitimacy of geopolitics that, until recently, used to be “provincial,” “politically incorrect,” and even perceived by some as a vestige of Nazi ideology. Karaganov... MORE

Although lacking a parliamentary majority, the new Socialist-led government of Bulgaria, is hurriedly reversing critical energy sector decisions of the previous center-right government, thus bringing the country closer to Russia. Within two weeks of the cabinet’s appointment, discussions are underway to reopen the Belene Nuclear... MORE

The existential reality of Belarus, squeezed between Russia and the European Union, is its crucial dependency on external geopolitical factors. If anything, the recent slump in Belarus’s exports exacerbates this dependency. In the first quarter of 2013, exports decreased by 20.5 percent compared with the... MORE