Last Wednesday’s (July 31) phone call from United States President Donald Trump probably offered little respite to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Since the start of this year’s unusually cold summer, every promising opportunity in foreign affairs was spoiled for the Russian leader with some domestic... MORE

Whenever Belarus’s vulnerability to Russian expansionism is discussed today, two points are raised most frequently: a) Vladimir Putin may be looking to extend his tenure in power beyond 2024 by taking over as president of the Union State of Russia and Belarus and b) Belarus... MORE

Last week (July 23), South Korean fighters repeatedly fired live warning shots as a Russian A-50U airborne warning and control system (AWACS) plane allegedly briefly violated Korean national airspace close to the Liancourt Rocks—a group of several small islets in the Sea of Japan, controlled... MORE

Following predictions by Russian military intelligence (GRU) that the West wants to separate Belarus from Russia and incorporate it into the Western orbit (see EDM, February 22), Moscow’s civilian external spy agency, the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), expressed its own concerns about the ongoing normalization... MORE

Irreconcilable street protests in Georgia have continued into their sixth straight week, with demonstrators demanding the resignation of Interior Minister Giorgi Gakharia. Opposition and civil society activists accuse Minister Gakharia of ordering the brutal dispersal of a mass rally on June 20 (see EDM, June... MORE

In an article in the military-theoretical journal Voyennya Mysl, Russian Colonel Oleg Gavrilovstates that “on the basis of the analysis of national interests of Western countries in the Arctic region, it is possible to ascertain those [interests] that are adverse to Russia’s.” Among others, he... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin constantly talks about how his country is building up its Armed Forces and supplying them with super weapons, but Russia’s defense industry is increasingly incapable of making those promises a reality. With growing debt (because the state has yet to pay... MORE

On July 24, 2019, Russian and Chinese military planes flying together invaded Japanese and South Korean airspace only to encounter Korean fighters that shot at the Russian aircraft. The Russian contribution to this joint air patrol included an A-50 Beriev airborne radar, which can track... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here. *To read Part Three, please click here.   The 5+2 group—Russia, Ukraine, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the United States, the European Union, Chisinau, Tiraspol, in this... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here.   A syndrome of impunity characterizes Transnistria’s attitude toward the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the lead international actor in the Transnistria conflict-management and -resolution process. With Moscow’s... MORE