Russian-Ukrainian relations, increasingly tense since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, plummeted to a new low after Russia’s forcible absorption of the Crimean Peninsula in March 2014 and subsequent invasion of Donbas. On March 18, 2020, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Sevastopol, home of... MORE

President Vladimir Putin’s second address to the nation on the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, delivered last Thursday (April 2), was as brief as his first one, given a week prior—and equally unsatisfactory in style and substance (see EDM, April 2). Wearing what looked like the same... MORE

COVID-19 has now started to spread to Russia’s North Caucasus republics, and regional authorities have been scrambling to mobilize scant resources to stave off the pandemic. As of March 30, officials confirmed infections in Adygea, Chechnya, Kabardino-Balkaria, as well as Krasnodar and Stavropol regions. The... MORE

In mid-March, the Russian media was celebrating the fact that air service had been restored to a part of rural Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, a federal subject in the Russian Far East, that had not seen any civilian planes for 25 years. Since then, however, many... MORE

The chief surgeon of the main Russian coronavirus medical facility on the outskirts of Moscow, in Kommunarka, Denis Protsenko (44), has contracted COVID-19 and is in seclusion within his own facility (RIA Novosti, March 31). On March 24, Protsenko was in close contact with President... MORE

Since Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, it has gradually reinforced its military presence in Kaliningrad, frequently portraying these measures as a response to increased North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) activity close to Russia’s borders. A key component in this process has been to boost... MORE

On February 3, the deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Major General Serhiy Kryvonos, suggested the necessity to legalize private military companies (PMC) in Ukraine. According to the national security official, many Ukrainian soldiers—especially those coming from the front lines... MORE

In early March 2020, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that Ankara would soon call for bids on the construction of the planned Istanbul Canal, between the Black and Marmora seas (RIA Novosti, March 8). He said he hoped to complete that $25 billion project... MORE

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Since its announcement in 2015, Russia’s proposed Nord Stream Two natural gas pipeline has remained the infrastructure project posing the largest single threat to the energy and national security of the European Union and Ukraine. The year 2019 witnessed the culmination of years... MORE

Russian society appears sharply divided regarding the indefinite extension of President Vladimir Putin’s “reign”—with 48 percent in favor and 47 against. Yet, amidst the present-day confusion and separate crises monopolizing people’s attention spans, this split looks far less shocking than would otherwise have been the... MORE