Russian President Vladimir Putin had long requested a meeting with North Korea’s youngish leader, Kim Jong-un, but it was only in mid-April that Russian diplomatic persuasion started to show promise. And a good-neighborly handshake between the two men finally took place in Vladivostok last week... MORE

One year ago, in April 2018, a quasi-authoritarian regime collapsed as a result of a nationwide protest movement in Armenia labeled the “Velvet Revolution” (see EDM, April 23, 2018). And the following December, the first non-fraudulent election in 20 years secured a comfortable parliamentary majority... MORE

Last week, Belarus’s President Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s visited Turkey (April 16) and, three days later, delivered his annual report to the parliament and the Belarusian people (April 19). Following negotiations with his Turkish counterpart, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Lukashenka pledged to boost bilateral trade from $1... MORE

Another oil and natural gas transit feud is brewing between Belarus and Russia, with President Alyaksandr Lukashenka threatening to disrupt pipeline flows to Europe and Ukraine in retaliation for Russian restrictions on Belarusian apples and pears (News.ru, April 12). Rosselkhodnadzor, the Russian agency that oversees... MORE

The Russian navy, the Military-Maritime Fleet (Voyenno-Morskoy Flot—VMF), always a poor relation to the Russian Land Forces given geography and national traditions, has been contracting in size since 1985. Now, as Izvestia announced last week (April 18), it is going to decline still further because of a... MORE

The Kremlin is disappointed and angry with the Ukrainian presidential election’s landslide winner, Volodymyr Zelensky. The president-elect may have over-fulfilled Moscow’s forecasts by defeating the incumbent, President Petro Poroshenko, by 73 percent to 25 percent in the April 21 runoff (Ukraiynska Pravda, April 22). Moscow... MORE

On March 31, 2019, the authorities released official results for the first-round of the Ukrainian presidential election. The incumbent, President Petro Poroshenko, came in second place with almost 16 percent of the vote, while the frontrunner, popular satirist/comedian/media manager Volodymyr Zelensky, received over 30 percent.... MORE

Financial corruption scandals are not a novel phenomenon in the Baltic States. Multiple Baltic banks have repeatedly been implicated in money laundering schemes involving politicians and businessmen from Russia and other former Soviet countries. But what is notable about the latest wave of revelations is... MORE

As the war in Syria appears to wind down, the Kremlin is shifting its focus to rebuilding the country and reestablishing social order there based on Russia’s vision and interests. Importantly, Moscow is evidently transferring the responsibility for this effort down to the level of... MORE

Russia’s Ministry of Defense has proposed an amendment to the existing presidential decree on the military administrative division of the country. The amendment is expected to be completed and signed into law by December 1, 2019. It will mark an upgrade to the status of... MORE