Russia’s so-far ambiguous approach to Libya’s internal conflict, one of reassuring both sides of its continued support, has begun to shift with the deployment of Russian mercenaries backing “Field Marshal” Khalifa Haftar on the front lines of the battle for Tripoli. Despite Moscow’s search for... MORE

Belarus remains at the center of a geopolitically tinged maelstrom of emotions enveloping the country. And in recent weeks, that maelstrom was simultaneously fed by Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei’s latest interview with RBC as well as a telling new poll regarding Belarusian public opinion... MORE

Moscow continues to put pressure on Ukraine by conducting various aggressive psychological operations (psy-ops) designed to ignite panic in Ukrainian society and disrupt military cooperation between Ukraine and the West. One of its latest such attempts actively combined a disinformation campaign with the Tsentr 2019... MORE

Russia’s “central role” in organizing the political space of rising non-Western Eurasia had been proclaimed at various forums and brainstormed by many political minds in previous years; but last week, President Vladimir Putin repeatedly attempted to give this notion new energy and content. His main... MORE

The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Karabakh and the adjoining regions of Azerbaijan now occupied by Armenian forces is almost invariably discussed in terms of the positions held by Baku, Yerevan and Moscow. But the attitudes and feelings of the people most directly involved—the... MORE

Moscow’s vaunted “pivot to the East” did not begin when Vladimir Putin returned to the presidency in 2012. Instead, it dates back to late 2006, when he ordered the development of the Russian Far East and Siberia. Others may prefer to believe it began with... MORE

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has yielded to Russia in accepting the Steinmeier Formula, a procedure for implementing the Minsk “accords” on Russian-defined terms (see EDM, September 17, 24, 25, 26). On October 1, in the Minsk Contact Group, Ukraine agreed to incorporate the core part... MORE

The Ukrainian crisis has been at the center of Russia’s confrontation with the West since February 2014, when a popular revolution, seen in Moscow as a Western-sponsored coup, ousted the pro-Russian government of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. This, the Kremlin believed, was an attempt by... MORE

On August 12, during the Caspian Economic Forum in Turkmenistan, Russia and Iran expressed their discontent regarding the long-proposed Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline (TCP) project (see EDM, September 4). Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev stressed that all “major Caspian Sea projects should undergo an impartial environmental... MORE

Five months after the Druzhba pipeline contamination fiasco—in which chlorides-heavy petroleum from Russia was sent into the Belarusian and European pipeline networks, causing $800 million in damage (see EDM, April 26, July 23; Commentaries, May 1, June 21)—the economic fallout has pit two Russian oil... MORE