On October 2, while on an official visit to Tashkent, the chairperson of Russia’s Federation Council (upper chamber of parliament), Valentina Matviyenko, unexpectedly announced Uzbekistan’s supposed intention to join the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) (RIA News, October 2). Days later, another Russian politician, Farid Mukhamedshin,... MORE

Russia has dreamed for years about capturing a significant share of China’s huge natural gas market. But getting there has been like slogging through deep Siberian snow. An important step will come before the end of this year, when Gazprom begins the second phase of... MORE

The massive and indiscriminate air strikes and the limited land offensive into Kurdish-controlled northern Syria launched by Turkey last Wednesday (October 9) have attracted prime international attention and caused much dismay in Washington, DC; but Moscow has remained uncharacteristically silent about the explosion of armed... MORE

The ministers of foreign affairs of Georgia and Russia, David Zalkaliani and Sergei Lavrov, respectively, met on September 26, in New York, on the sidelines of the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (Kommersant, September 27). This was the first ministerial-level meeting between... MORE

An old Soviet joke had it that if Saudi Arabia ever became communist, Riyadh would be importing sand within five years. The situation around the once-prosperous Ukrainian port in Sevastopol suggests a similar dynamic: if the Russians occupy something, as they have in Crimea, it... MORE

Russo-Chinese relations continue to improve (see EDM, July 25, 30) as both countries’ ties with the United States have grown increasingly strained. Moscow and Beijing describe their bilateral relationship as a “strategic partnership,” constantly adding new adjectives to emphasize its evolving strength. The People’s Republic... MORE

Kyiv has co-signed with Russia and the Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” (DPR, LPR) a commitment to: a) accept the holding of “local elections” in that Russian-controlled territory of Ukraine and b) accept the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s (OSCE) monitoring and assessment... MORE

On September 27, AldriMer, a Norwegian information outlet specializing in military affairs, claimed that, according to its sources, “members of the Russian special services without any insignia and dressed as civilians were spotted on Svalbard [Spitsbergen] Island” and on Norwegian continental territory. As noted by... MORE

Russia’s Armed Forces and defense industry are making considerable advances in the design and introduction of modern unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology. While there is growing interest in diversifying both the roles and types of UAVs in service within the Russian military, the biggest advances... MORE

Immediately following Russia’s forcible annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in February–March 2014, proposals surfaced to return to an old Imperial Russian tradition of referring to this land as “Taurida.” Last month (September 16), during a “Crimean Hellas” symposium in the republican capital of Simferopol, this... MORE