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

The meeting of the Minsk-based Contact Group, held by videoconference on March 24–26, had been expected to officially create a new negotiating forum, named the Consultative Council—in fact, an accretion to the Minsk Contact Group on the conflict in eastern Ukraine. The meeting, however, did... MORE

The COVID-19 coronavirus emergency gives Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a non-political excuse for stepping back from the plan that his envoy, Andriy Yermak, accepted from Russian presidential envoy Dmitry Kozak on March 11 in the Minsk Contact Group. The plan would institute a Consultative Council,... MORE