Moscow’s imposition of a wine embargo against Moldova as part of the Russian effort to dissuade Chisinau from pursuing closer ties with the European Union is not working as the Russians had hoped. In fact, Moldova had been exporting only about a quarter of its... MORE

Recent events around Belarus create the impression that if one assumes Belarus is a bridge between the two flanks of Europe, the traffic on that bridge is asymmetric. Serious business comes from its eastern end and nothing but reprimands and exhortations originate from the west.... MORE

The prime minister of the Republic of Belarus, Mikhail Myasnikovich, led a large delegation September 3–5, on the first state visit to Mongolia since the establishment of bilateral diplomatic relations in 1992. The Mongolian government treated the visit as high level, and media coverage was... MORE

The Belarusian-Russian potassium (potash) war has undergone several new developments. First, it appears that Uralkalii, a Russian potash producer that, in late July, left the joint Russian-Belarusian trader, Belarusian Potassium Company (BPC) (see EDM August 5, September 4), has insured its “management responsibility” risk. Its... MORE

The Russian Navy has decided to deploy three ships stationed at the base in Sevastopol on Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula to its reestablished Mediterranean flotilla. In particular, on September 4, Moscow deployed the destroyer Smetliviy (https://www.interfax.ru/world/news.asp?id=326972). Some Sevastopol-based ships actually sailed for the Mediterranean via Novorossiysk,... MORE

On August 26, Vladislav Baumgaertner of Russia was arrested in Minsk and placed in the KGB prison popularly known as Amerikanka while criminal proceedings have been launched against him by the Belarusian Prosecutor’s Office. An ethnic German, born and raised in the Urals (www.comnarcon.com/index.php?id=454?), Baumgaertner... MORE

Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin visited Moldova on September 2–3, in his parallel capacities as President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy “on Transnistria” (“po Pridnestroviyu”) and as Russian co-chairman of the Russia-Moldova Inter-Governmental Economic Cooperation Commission. This visit had no other purpose than to threaten... MORE

By pursuing the short-term profit goals of Russian oligarchs out of the conviction that this will promote Russia’s interest rather than considering the possible impact of such an approach on Russian national interests, Moscow is alienating Ukraine and Belarus, two Slavic neighbors it has long... MORE

Lithuania’s National Energy Independence Strategy, passed by the country’s parliament in June 2012, aims to ensure Lithuania’s energy independence before 2020 by strengthening the country’s energy security and, by extension, its economic competitiveness (https://www.enmin.lt/lt/activity/veiklos_kryptys/strateginis_planavimas_ir_ES/Energy_independence_strategy0919.pdf). Lithuania’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union, which it... MORE

New initiatives supporting Russian economic and political objectives keep emerging in Ukraine as the date of the expected signing of the Association Agreement with the European Union at the November 28–29 EU Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius approaches. On August 9, the leader of the... MORE