Josep Borrell, the European Union’s high representative for foreign and security policy, visited Moscow in person last week (February 5)—still highly unusual during the continuing global COVID-19 pandemic. Borell’s face-to-face talks with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, initially aimed at finding ways to reverse the... MORE

On January 25, the government of the Russian Federation adopted a draft version of a bilateral agreement with Belarus on the diversion of some Belarusian refined oil product exports from the Baltic States’ transshipment terminals to Russian seaports (TASS, January 27). At first glance, the... MORE

On February 11–12, the All-Belarusian People’s Assembly (ABPA) will gather together 2,700 delegates, including representatives of all levels of executive power in the country, members of the parliament, and directors of Belarus’s largest production units. This ostensibly trendsetting event comes amid new findings regarding shifting... MORE

At the end of last year, former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko (June 2014–May 2019) announced in an interview that, back in 2018, he had initiated a special operation to detain mercenaries belonging to the notorious Russian private military company (PMC) Wagner Group (News.ru, December 31,... MORE

The 1936 Montreux Convention governs the passage of ships between the Mediterranean and Black seas via the Turkish Straits, dictates the size of the vessels that can remain there, as well as limits how long they are allowed to stay. Now, 85 years later, this... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. Kyiv is pinning its hopes on the new administration of United States President Joseph Biden to help rebalance and restart both the Normandy forum and the Minsk Contact Group (see Part One in EDM, February 4). The Minsk... MORE

Moscow and most Russian regions saw a series of huge rallies at the end of January and early February, in which protesters demanded the immediate release of Russian dissident and opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Remarkably, on January 23, a crowd of several hundred pro-Navalny demonstrators... MORE

Russia received notably high attention in United States President Joseph Biden’s first foreign policy speech, delivered at the State Department last Thursday, February 4. President Vladimir Putin may take pride in earning a personal mention and a place ahead of China; although the latter was... MORE

Ukraine is multiplying calls for changing the composition of the “Normandy Four” group (Russia, Germany, France, Ukraine) and its derivative Minsk Contact Group (see below). The Kremlin has effectively used these negotiation forums from 2014 to date in order to conserve, instead of end, its... MORE

Four days ago (February 1), the Joint Russian-Turkish Center for Monitoring the Ceasefire in Karabakh opened in Qiyameddinli (in the Agdam district of Azerbaijan), a village Baku recovered after the recent fighting. In attendance were Azerbaijani Defense Minister Zakir Gasanov, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Aleksandr... MORE