The impression that Russia has behaved uncharacteristically passively in the face of multiple unexpected foreign crises over the last few months is somewhat misleading. It is true that Moscow’s attempts at managing these crises—from Belarus to Kyrgyzstan to Moldova—proved limited at best, and President Vladimir... MORE

Russia’s political-military leadership pays increasing attention to the combat potential of introducing and exploiting unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UACV). Experience gained during its operations in Ukraine and Syria, coupled with experimentation in military exercises, as well as specialist analyses of... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   Azerbaijan’s army has won the second Karabakh war, regaining about one half of the territory seized from it by Armenian forces in the early 1990s. However, Russia has won the “peacekeeping” after this war—a goal that had... MORE

Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a new ceasefire accord on November 10, finally halting the latest round of fierce fighting in Karabakh that had been raging for a month and a half. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan was the first leader to share this development, posting... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian signed, over a video conference, on November 9, an armistice agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Mediated by Russia between the two belligerents, this armistice dramatically changes the situation on the ground,... MORE

The second Karabakh war, which began on September 27, 2020, ended this week, with Armenia soundly defeated and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan forced to accept the ceasefire demands made by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. The accord to end the war was signed by Pashinyan,... MORE

On October 22, Rosneft’s CEO, Igor Sechin, revealed some new, previously unpublished details regarding the state-owned Russian petroleum giant’s latest mega-project in the Arctic—Vostok Oil. Specifically, Sechin confirmed that Vostok Oil will include a natural gas liquefaction plant, which will ultimately enable Rosneft to ship... MORE

Moscow is increasingly worried about something it has not yet figured out how best to counter: Beijing’s use of soft power to promote the “sinicization” of cultures in the countries of Central Asia and the South Caucasus. This process, if successful, could lead those states... MORE

From the earliest days of war in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, some bloggers and security experts noted key similarities between the situation in the temporarily occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk and that of Azerbaijan’s Karabakh and surrounding areas. In both cases, war had de... MORE

On October 26, President Vladimir Putin formally adopted the “Strategy for the Development of the Russian Arctic Zone and Provision of National Security Through 2035” (Pravo.gov.ru, October 26). The document is to be implemented in three stages: 2020–2024, 2025–2030 and 2031–2035. In a related comment,... MORE