In January, Russia started a new federal ten-year program for developing a GLONASS dual-use satellite navigation system. Its main goal, and challenge, is to replace the old generation of satellites with new ones and increase the system’s reliability and preciseness to make it comparable with... MORE

The role of Cossack organizations in Russian life will likely grow in 2021, as last month’s Presidential Council for Cossack Affairs (PCCA) meeting demonstrated. The council’s deputy chairman and presidential adviser, Anatoliy Seryshev, outlined concrete steps in the 2021–2030 strategy to develop Cossack formations after... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. Under the November 9–10, 2020 armistice declaration, Russia’s “peacekeeping” mission in Upper (Nagorno) Karabakh is limited to 1,960 motor-rifle troops with light weapons and armored personnel carriers (see EDM, November 12, 13, 2020). According to Russian President Vladimir Putin,... MORE

In November 2020, Russia and Egypt conducted their first joint naval exercises in the Black Sea. The Bridge of Friendship-2020 naval drills brought the Egyptian Navy to the Black Sea for the first time (PortNews.ru, November 16, 2020). Along with expanding military cooperation with Cairo,... MORE

Russia’s “peacekeeping” operation in Upper (Nagorno) Karabakh, which ended the 44-day war last November, is laying the foundation of a Russian protectorate in this Armenian-inhabited territory of Azerbaijan (see EDM, December 8, 10, 2020). This undertaking shows some familiar features of Russia’s earlier “peacekeeping” model... MORE

The Kremlin-controlled Russian media and top officialdom have greeted President Joe Biden and his administration taking power in the US with a massive, almost hysterical propaganda broadside. Kremlin news outlets have been castigating Biden as an old and senile figurehead president, who will hardly survive... MORE

In a recent interview, the Russian president’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov remarked that Moldova’s president Maia Sandu had more than enough domestic challenges demanding her attention than requesting the withdrawal of Russian military forces from the Transnistrian region (Newsmaker.md, January 5; Newsmaker.md, November 30, 2020). This... MORE

The Belorysy i Rynok newspaper asked three prominent Belarusian analysts to predict the country’s near future. But two out of three only shared observations, not forecasts. Thus, Piotr Rudkovsky, head of the Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies, observed that for any political regime, creating an... MORE

On December 22, 2020, Russia announced sending additional military instructors to the Central African Republic (CAR). Despite initial rejection, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) ultimately admitted the fact of sending additional personnel to the CAR, specifying that the “instructors” would be used only to... MORE

On December 31, 2020, the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) delivered its first volumes of natural gas from the Shah Deniz field off the Caspian coast of Azerbaijan to Greece and Bulgaria. The 2,175-miles-long pipeline is the European leg of the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) that connects... MORE