Two seemingly unrelated developments are worrying officials in the South Caucasus, Russia and the West. On the one hand, tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the opening of a transit corridor between Azerbaijan and its non-contiguous Nakhchivan autonomy are growing, the result of Armenia’s failure... MORE

Russia imposed the Minsk “agreements” on Ukraine in 2014 and 2015 through military force. Ukraine’s government and civil society regard the terms of those documents as inimical to the national interests. They spent these seven years resisting, evading, and asking to change those terms. Throughout... MORE

The December 7 video-conference between Presidents Joseph Biden of the United States and Vladimir Putin of Russia raised many questions, as both sides were scarce with details. The official read-outs of the meeting confirmed the previously voiced positions, leading many observers to conclude that the... MORE

News of an apparent Russian military buildup around Ukraine has been attracting increasingly alarming international headlines since October (see EDM, October 14, December 2). These developments prompted regular statements from the leaders of the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) regarding potential... MORE

The topics of Russia’s plight and future prospects came up again and again last week, in the December 7 video-conversation between Presidents Joseph Biden and Vladimir Putin, at the Summit of Democracies that the Biden administration organized and hosted on December 9–10, as well as... MORE

It is often said that most people have little difficulty living in huts until someone builds a castle nearby; then, the poverty they are experiencing becomes unbearable, and their anger at those in the castle will inevitably grow. That adage certainly holds true for the... MORE

Presidents Joseph Biden of the United States and Vladimir Putin of Russia have agreed, in their December 7 video-dialogue (see EDM, December 8), to create working groups that would address Russia’s concerns regarding Ukraine’s place in the European security order. Those concerns directly relate to... MORE

The stakes were high when Presidents Joseph Biden of the United States and Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation held a two-hour, bilateral video-conference on December 7 (see EDM, December 8). Prior to the virtual summit, pro-Kremlin commentaries in Moscow warned of Russia and the... MORE

A new standoff is maturing around the long-standing issue of privatization of real estate in Georgia’s secessionist region of Abkhazia. On November 8, the “president” of Abkhazia, Aslan Bzhania, stated at an official meeting in the city of Tkvarcheli that citizens of Russia should have... MORE

During the first two weeks of November, ethnic Ossetians and Ingush in the Russian North Caucasus republic of North Ossetia–Alania skirmished on three separate occasions. No casualties were reported, but in the most violent of these incident, two Ingush individuals were hospitalized after a shootout.... MORE