Over the past several weeks, the United States has been preoccupied with the ongoing transition of power in the White House, a riot in the Capitol and a second impeachment of outgoing President Donald Trump (see EDM, January 7, 2021). As a result, Washington’s focus... MORE

Russia continues to press ahead with its nuclear weapons modernization program; however, domestic production difficulties and the coronavirus pandemic hindered the development of its latest strategic systems during the course of the last year. In 2020, the Strategic Missile Forces (Raketnye Voyska Strategicheskogo Naznacheniya—RVSN) were... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   Russian experts and commentators have sought to draw key military lessons from the Second Karabakh War (September 27–November 9, 2020), which concluded in a decisive victory for the Azerbaijani side, actively supported by Turkey (see Part One... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian conferred on January 11, in the Kremlin, to assess the implementation of the Putin-brokered armistice that ended the Second Karabakh War on November 10, 2020 (see EDM, November 12, 13, 2020).... MORE

On January 11, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian met at a trilateral summit in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin, at the latter’s initiative (Kremlin.ru, January 11, 2021). The four-hour-long talks served as an important follow-up to the ceasefire statement... MORE

Thirty years ago tomorrow (January 13), Soviet forces fired at unarmed Lithuanians in Vilnius, killing 15 and thereby accelerating the recovery of the full independence of the Baltic countries as well as the demise of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Both the details... MORE

Recovering from the long seasonal holiday break, Russia usually begins a new year with high hopes and low activity. But last year had a strikingly different start, as President Vladimir Putin produced one of his trademark surprises and introduced a rushed constitutional reform initiative, which... MORE

On December 29, 2020, Belarusian Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko stated that Russian energy supplies to Belarus in 2021 will be purchased under “favorable terms,” thus confirming that the months-long negotiations between the two countries had concluded (BelTA, December 29, 2020). The details of the bilateral... MORE

The long-running demonstrations in Khabarovsk last year captured the imagination of Russians not only east of the Urals but west of it. At the same time, Moscow’s mishandling of Chinese involvement in the Russian economy has infuriated Siberians and Far Easterners as much at Moscow... MORE

While a group of right-wing Donald Trump supporters caused havoc in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021, Moscow officials were celebrating Orthodox Christmas Eve. President Vladimir Putin and his cohorts were attending mass, state TV channels were broadcasting live church services instead of political commentary,... MORE