The first annual Political Consultations within the scope of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum—a discussion format established following last year’s (October 23–24, 2019) inaugural Russia-Africa Summit in Sochi—took place on July 8, 2020. Held via videoconference, the meeting assembled Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his... MORE

The ongoing COVID-19 crisis notwithstanding, Ukrainian politics has thoroughly entered campaign mode with local elections scheduled for this coming October. According to the Kyiv-based pollster Rating Group, as of a month ago, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s party, Servant of the People, registers 29.3 percent support among... MORE

The protests in Khabarovsk and other Russian cities in Siberia and the Far East over the last month (see EDM, August 3) have called attention to something that has been a problem for the central Russian government since at least the 19th century and will... MORE

Demonstrations in Khabarovsk Krai, prompted by the July 9 arrest of regional governor Sergei Furgal, have become among the largest and longest of recent protest actions inside the Russian Federation, already having lasted several weeks (see EDM, July 20). According to several sources, on various... MORE

The case of the 33 associates of the Russian private military company (PMC) Wagner Group, apprehended in a sanatorium (a cross between a recreational and a medical facility) in Zhdanovichi, a suburb of Minsk (see EDM, July 30), has so far resembled a captivating detective... MORE

The presidential elections in Belarus were expected to be a tightly controlled affair, resulting in a convincing victory, on August 9, for the incumbent, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who has firmly retained power since July 1994. The plan, however, unraveled as a result of the remarkably strong... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. The agreement on additional measures to strengthen the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine, effective from July 27 for an unlimited duration (see Part One in EDM, July 29), resuscitates the Joint Center for Control and Coordination (JCCC, an inactive... MORE

A major scandal has broken out between China, on the one hand, and Tajikistan and Russia, on the other, regarding alleged Chinese claims on the Pamir region. This past month, official outlets of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) repeatedly republished an article by Chinese... MORE

On July 29, the Belarusian KGB and OMON special police forces arrested 32 Russians residing at a countryside resort, Belorusochka, just outside of Minsk. The Belarusian authorities have accused the Russians of being members of the notorious private military company (Chastnaya Voennaya Companiya—ChVK) Wagner Group,... MORE

Moscow has maneuvered Ukraine’s Presidential Office into quasi-recognizing Russia’s military proxies in “certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions” (Russian and Ukrainian acronym: ORDLO) for the first time. The vehicle for this breakthrough is the agreement on “Measures to Strengthen the Ceasefire Regime,” negotiated... MORE