*To read Part One, please click here.   Beginning in 2019, Russia intensified its outreach to some Central African countries—particularly, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Republic of the Congo (hereafter, the Congo). Russian interests in the region are premised on a... MORE

A critical element in the reform and modernization of the Russian Armed Forces over the past dozen years has been the exponential development of electronic warfare (EW) capabilities. Prior to the reforms initiated in the fall of 2008, the military’s existing EW capabilities were disparate,... MORE

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed a growing public mistrust toward the Russian authorities. But at the same time, most Russians still believe state-promoted anti-Western conspiracy theories. The situation around the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic in Russia is becoming increasingly tense. Russian officials now admit that existing... MORE

Plans for a new Baltic–Black Sea waterway, passing through Ukraine, Belarus and Poland, have the potential to revolutionize the geopolitics of Europe’s East as well as exacerbate East-West tensions (see EDM, February 18). The European Union has labeled the project “E40,” and the United States... MORE

Following the large coronavirus outbreak in Iran, neighboring countries quickly closed their borders with the Islamic Republic. More than a thousand Turkish trucks carrying goods to Central Asia found themselves stuck at checkpoints due to the closure of the Iran-Turkey and Iran-Turkmenistan borders (Daily Sabah,... MORE

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made an official visit to the southeastern coastal oblast of Zaporizhzhia, on April 11. During his trip, local officials familiarized the commander-in-chief with the operational situation in the Sea of Azov. Additionally, Zelenskyy visited the port of Berdyansk, located in close... MORE

Russia’s constellation of GLONASS navigation satellites are part of a dual-use system—available to both civilian users and the military. Moscow began deploying it during the 1980s–1990s, but its initial capabilities were almost fully lost by the year 2000, due to technical and economic shortcomings. However,... MORE

Although Russia had time to prepare for the COVID-19 pandemic—the novel coronavirus arrived to Moscow, now the country’s hardest-hit urban center, only in the last week of March—the authorities were nonetheless caught badly unprepared. New infections are increasing by 4,500–6,000 per day; yet, the official... MORE

In response to mounting cases of COVID-19 in Russia, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree, on April 17, providing a financial reprieve for the majority of the seven million–eight million foreign migrant workers currently believed to still reside in in the country, with little or... MORE

The Russia-Africa Summit and Economic Forum, held in Sochi on October 23–24, 2019 (see EDM, October 28, 2019), reaffirmed Russia’s growing interest in Central Africa. Among the countries comprising this region, two—the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Republic of the Congo—received the... MORE