Recent publications in the Western media about the Russian military buildup along the border with Ukraine (Kyiv Post, October 31) provoked a new round of discussions about whether Moscow intends to resolve the Ukrainian issue by force. This worry was based on satellite images of... MORE

Russia has not entirely avoided contravening international laws and norms since the Geneva summit in mid-June, but its behavior has been an improvement compared to many periods in recent memory. United States President Joseph Biden impressed upon President Vladimir Putin, over the course of their... MORE

The recent defeat in the Estonian parliament of a resolution denouncing Moscow’s russification of non-Russian peoples reflects two diametrically opposed trends. On the one hand, the down-vote is a product of the increasing unwillingness of Europe and the West to focus attention on this issue—an... MORE

On October 29, Moscow and Chisinau agreed on a conditional resumption of Russian natural gas supplies to Moldova as of October 30. The Russian side had curtailed gas supplies to Moldova by one third in October, and threatened to discontinue the supplies altogether by December... MORE

At the end of October, the Russian Armed Forces staged a military exercise in Crimea to rehearse the defense of the occupied peninsula. The military deployed forces from the Southern Military District/Joint Strategic Command (Obyedinennyye Strategicheskoye Komandovanie—OSK) to the Opuk training ground in Crimea, where... MORE

Since Soviet times, Russian analysts have mused about the possibility that Germany might try to recover Kaliningrad, or East Prussia as it was known before Joseph Stalin seized it at the end of World War II. Later, during the 1990s, they focused on the risk... MORE

In late September, Russia’s first Floating Storage Regasification Unit (FSRU)—specifically designed for emergency transportation of liquefied natural gas (LNG) via the Baltic Sea to Kaliningrad Oblast—successfully delivered its initial load of LNG from the Yamal LNG production facility to India’s Dabhol seaport. The vessel, called... MORE

On October 18–23, the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which includes Afghanistan as an observer, held its Combat Brotherhood 2021 strategic military exercises, with three drills codenamed Echelon-2021, Search-2021 and Interaction-2021, in southern Tajikistan’s Momirak and Harb Maydon military ranges. The scale was substantial,... MORE

Ethnic-Chechen and ethnic-Russian members of a special forces unit clashed at the Tambukan training center, in Stavropol Krai, in mid-October. The row took place amidst trials these service members were undergoing to receive the honor of wearing the crimson (maroon) beret. The crimson beret symbolized... MORE

The back-to-back international summits of the G20 in Rome and COP26 in Glasgow at the end of October brought together hosts of dignitaries and hordes of activists, but one global leader was conspicuously absent—Russian President Vladimir Putin. One week prior, at the annual gathering of... MORE