Author’s Note: What follows corrects an article I wrote for Jamestown on Tuesday. I was misinformed by several sources I trusted and am glad to say that my conclusions about what is taking place at RFE/RL were incorrect. My argument that we must not do... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   The Antarctic Treaty System (ATS) has regulated the current status quo in Antarctica since it came into force in 1961. However, the ATS regime is set to expire in 2048, and some actors, including Russia, have been... MORE

Despite the global coronavirus pandemic, Moscow is taking steps to modify its combat training and military exercises as well as further strengthen the Western Military District (MD) amid tensions with the Transatlantic alliance. Following a recent online meeting of defense ministers of the North Atlantic... MORE

After nine years of the United States relying entirely on Russian Soyuz rockets to deliver astronauts into orbit, this dependency finally ended on May 30, 2020, with the successful launch of the private US company SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, bound for the International Space Station... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   Kyiv has raised its delegation to the Minsk Contact Group from a semi-official level to a full-fledged, senior-level governmental and parliamentary delegation. Kyiv hopes that Moscow will reciprocate in order to accelerate the negotiations and do so,... MORE

Russian authorities rarely resort to such old-fashioned means of communication as written articles. Yet, last week, three key figures in the top leadership—President Vladimir Putin, Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, and former prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, who now holds the newly established position of deputy... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   A deeper look at Romania’s new national defense strategy, taken up for consideration by the parliament on June 3, provides some answers as to why Russia’s reaction to this 46-page planning document has been so aggressive (see... MORE

Kyiv is adding Ukrainian citizens from the Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine’s east as members of Kyiv’s delegation to the Minsk Contact Group (see EDM, June 15, 17). But this is only one aspect of the delegation’s thorough overhaul. At the same time, Kyiv has turned... MORE

In March 2019, Dmitry Zhelobov, a specialist on China at Russia’s Urals Federal University, warned that Beijing was shifting from relying on soft power in Central Asia to using hard power. If Russia did not take this threat seriously, he added, China might have its... MORE

Paul Whelan (50)—a Canadian-born United States resident, Marine Corps veteran (discharged for bad conduct) and director of a security firm—was arrested in Moscow, in December 2018, by the Federal Security Service’s (FSB) counter-intelligence arm and charged with espionage. Whelan was incarcerated in the notorious FSB... MORE