In key global debates, Russia’s voice has been uncharacteristically timid lately, and various Russian domestic controversies are developing without the usual heavy-handed interference from the Kremlin—almost as if President Vladimir Putin has lost interest in the affairs of state. Such local disturbances as protests in... MORE

On May 3, United States President Donald Trump phoned Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and had “a long and very good conversation” discussing “trade, Venezuela, Ukraine, North Korea, Nuclear Arms Control and even the ‘Russian Hoax’ [sic],” according to Trump. The two leaders did not talk... MORE

In the early morning of April 30, in Caracas, opposition leader, speaker of the National Assembly and the self-proclaimed interim president of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, declared that the Venezuelan Armed Forces had abandoned the socialist autocratic president Nicolás Maduro. The “usurper” would be ousted, he... MORE

On March 23, a Russian defense ministry Ilyushin Il-62 passenger jet and an Antonov An-124 military cargo plane arrived at Simón Bolívar International Airport, having departed from the Chkalovsky military airbase (with an intermediate stop in Syria). Carrying 35 tons of cargo, the two aircraft... MORE

A Russian task force of some 100 men has landed in the Venezuelan capital Caracas, arriving on two military planes—a super-large Antonov An-124 military transporter and an aging long-range Il-62M passenger jet, also belonging to the Russian Ministry of Defense. Both jets took off from... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated members of the country’s Special Operations Forces (SOF) on their professional day, February 27 (inaugurated in 2015), underscoring this service’s instrumentality in the “eradication of terrorists in Syria and securing peace in Crimea and Sevastopol during the historical referendum [sic]”... MORE

Introduction Amid the ongoing crisis in Venezuela—in which the country faces not only economic meltdown, but also a division between two rival presidents, in the persons of incumbent President Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido—the People’s Republic of China (PRC) remains one of the... MORE

At the February 27 meeting of Russia’s top military chiefs (the Defense Ministry Collegium), the minister of defense, Army General Sergei Shoigu, described mounting external military threats in an unstable and unpredictable world. In his opening remarks, which were reported by the defense ministry’s press... MORE

On January 17, the president of Zimbabwe, Emmerson Mnangagwa, paid a state visit to Belarus, as part of his four-country Eurasian tour. Besides Minsk, the Zimbabwean delegation landed in Moscow, Almaty and Baku (Kommersant.ru, January 15). The African continent is not a new destination for... MORE

Russia has positioned itself as the main supporter of Nicholás Maduro’s regime in Venezuela, thus risking turning a crisis in a far-away country into an embarrassing political defeat. Official propaganda has amplified this issue. Yet, while 57 percent of Russian respondents in a recent poll... MORE