Five weeks of peaceful mass protests in Belarus after the falsified elections on August 9, have profoundly changed this formerly rather stable and conservative country, impressed its European neighbors, and set a sharp challenge for Russia, which is tied to this partner in a peculiar... MORE

The Kremlin’s website reported, on August 12, that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev had initiated a phone call to congratulate Vladimir Putin on the Russian vaccine against COVID-19 and to discuss bilateral issues. The next day, however, in a wholly unprecedented move, Aliyev’s press service sharply... MORE

On August 28, Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka threatened to redirect all of his country’s trade flows as well as the transit of foreign goods across its territory from Lithuanian ports to Ust-Luga and Primorsk, in Russia’s Leningrad Oblast, if Europe were to impose anti-Belarus sanctions... MORE

Between August 3 and 31, forces from the four Russian fleets—Northern, Pacific, Black and Baltic—took part in the country’s annual “Ocean Shield” large-scale naval military exercises. Supervised by the Military-Maritime Fleet’s (Voyenno-Morskoy Flot—VMF) commander-in-chief, Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov, Ocean Shield 2020 involved a broad range of... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   Regime change remains Moscow’s political objective in Belarus (see Part One). This is defined as easing out President Alyaksandr Lukashenka with his assent, as part of an internal constitutional settlement. Russia wants this settlement to be negotiated... MORE

What looks to the world as another “color revolution,” this time in Belarus after the August 9 presidential election, outgrew and overwhelmed an initial Russian operation against the disobedient President Alyaksandr Lukashenka. The unforeseen, spontaneous popular protests against electoral fraud have compelled Moscow to change... MORE

Belarus is not Ukraine either now or should Moscow try to annex it, Russian analysts are warning. It is far more integrated as a society than Ukraine is, with far fewer regional, linguistic or even religious divisions than exist in Ukraine; and it is far... MORE

Prominent Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny (44) suddenly became critically ill on August 20, onboard a passenger jet destined for Moscow soon after takeoff from the western Siberian city of Tomsk. The pilot made an emergency landing in the nearby city of Omsk. An ambulance... MORE

The pro-Kremlin ruler of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, has unveiled plans to set up a republican government agency for relations with compatriots living abroad. The announcement came several weeks after the killing of a critic of Kadyrov in Vienna, Austria. Some observers contend that the Chechen... MORE

Despite the global COVID-19 pandemic, the Russian Armed Forces have vigorously pursued the summer combat training schedule throughout the country’s five military districts (MDs). International attention was sparked by Russia’s recent air-defense and naval exercises—especially the large maritime war games in the Baltic Sea, which... MORE