On August 14, the Ukrainian town of Popasna (Luhansk Oblast) was hit by US-produced and Ukraine-operated M142 HIMARS complexes, reportedly causing severe damage to the locally headquartered private military company (PMC), the Wagner Group (Mil.in.ua, August 14). As a result of the attack, more than... MORE

Most countries are slowly recovering from the disastrous demographic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, but Russia is not. Instead, as new data shows, the Russian Federation has resumed its long-term demographic decline (see EDM, September 13, 2016), a trend likely to intensify and profoundly affect... MORE

On August 8–9, in Vilnius, Lithuania, the New Belarus Conference took place. It was summoned by the office of Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, formerly a 2020 presidential hopeful, who may have won the last presidential elections—at least that is what many opposition-minded Belarusians believe. The 18-member organizational... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here. Russia resorted to military interventions repeatedly to stop Georgia (2008) and Ukraine (2014, 2022) from drawing closer to the Euro-Atlantic system. Those interventions aimed, in effect, to coerce Tbilisi and Kyiv... MORE

On July 28–29, Tashkent hosted the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s (SCO) Council of Foreign Ministers. This was the final rehearsal before the SCO summit scheduled to take place later this year in Uzbekistan’s historic city of Samarkand on September 15–16. The foreign ministers of all member... MORE

Since 2014–2015, Russia has built dozens of ammunition depots hidden in civilian buildings near railway stations in the occupied parts of Ukraine. Russian logistics warehouses are almost always located near railways, since the Russian military has been experiencing a serious shortage of logistics units, especially... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. Any status of neutrality is subject to legal and political interpretations, within or outside the country in question, at any given time; all the more so when Moldova’s neutrality is uncodified by treaty and unrecognized internationally in any... MORE

Military experts loyal to the Kremlin are increasingly recognizing that Russia does not have the resources to implement President Vladimir Putin’s ambitious geopolitical plans. However, Moscow leadership is seemingly no longer capable of listening to rational arguments. In one instance, toward the end of July... MORE

As Russian aggression against Ukraine approaches the half-year mark and combat operations appear to be at a standstill, a new calculus has been developed in the Kremlin: A long war suits Moscow’s interests and can eventually be won. This self-serving proposition follows the failure of... MORE

Introduction During a recent phone call between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Polish President Andrzej Duda, the former said that both sides should actively cooperate to organize activities for the 10th anniversary of China-Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) cooperation (中国—中东欧国家合作, Zhongguo — Zhong dongou guojia... MORE