On July 29, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka appointed Mikhail Kostechko to serve as the new general director of the country’s main oil products trader, Belorusskaya Neftyanaya Kompaniya (BNK), and ordered him to maintain foreign market share regardless of the activity of the “Western scumbags” (President.gov.by,... MORE

One of the most important consequences of the November 2020 and January 2021 joint Armenian-Azerbaijan-Russian declarations ending the latest round of fighting between Yerevan and Baku was a commitment to the reopening of transportation corridors in the South Caucasus region. These accords sparked hopes in... MORE

The international situation both triggered the ongoing crisis in Belarus—at least in the minds of some observers—and continues to have implications for its evolution. According to Belarusian KGB head Ivan Tertel, the August–September 2020 rallies protesting the official presidential election results were expressly sparked from... MORE

One of the most memorable stories from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics was the non-start of Belarusian athlete Kristina Timanovskaya, who dared to criticize her country’s sport authorities and found herself escorted by coaches to the airport, where she managed to flee. Russian mainstream media provided... MORE

Since 1991, Moscow has viewed the 125,000-strong Christian Turkic Gagauz minority in Moldova as a useful tool to limit rapprochement between Chisinau and Bucharest as well as derail any Moldovan moves toward the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). More recently, it... MORE

At their June 16, 2021, summit in Geneva, Presidents Joseph Biden and Vladimir Putin agreed to return their previously recalled ambassadors: Anatoly Antonov to Washington and John Sullivan to Moscow. Antonov stayed in Moscow for over three months in an unprecedented demonstration of anger. Sullivan... MORE

On July 20, Russian United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), Rostec and Sukhoi officially unveiled their newest single-engine fighter, nicknamed the “Checkmate,” at the MAKS airshow (see EDM, July 22). According to UAC, the serial production of the Checkmate could be launched in 2026 (Life, June 20).... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. The European Union has yet to develop a policy regarding the protracted (“frozen”) conflicts in the wider Black Sea region. Russia is both a belligerent and an arbiter in these conflicts, negating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of... MORE

Russian Energy Minister Nikolai Shulginov and Pakistan’s ambassador to Moscow, Shafqat Ali Khan, signed a revised agreement on May 28 that initiates the construction of the planned Pakistan Stream Gas Pipeline (PSGP) (Minenergo.gov.ru, May 28). Formerly known as the North-South Gas Pipeline, this infrastructural mega-project... MORE

The collapse of a single short river crossing on the Trans-Siberian Railroad 300 kilometers from Chita, in late July, and President Vladimir Putin’s immediate decision to convene a meeting of the Russian Security Council to decide how to correct the situation highlight both the serious... MORE