Soviet officials always referred to their country’s five Muslim republics east of the Caspian as “Central Asia and Kazakhstan,” explicitly separating out the latter because ethnic-Russians formed a plurality of the population in Kazakhstan, unlike in the other four. And as result of that demographic... MORE

The Russian Academy of Military Sciences held its annual defense conference on March 2. The theme this year covered future wars, armed conflicts and the challenges facing the defense sector. The president of the Academy, Army General (ret.) Makhmut Gareev, provided the opening speech. However,... MORE

New natural gas discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean might be a boon for the European Union’s efforts to move away from dependence on Russian energy supplies. In the current complex energy game between Europe and Russia, Italy could play an important role as an entry... MORE

Late last year, President Vladimir Putin referred to the Avangard hypersonic glide reentry vehicle (RV) as a “gift” to Russia for 2019 (NTV, December 26, 2018). And recently, he compared its significance to that of the first man-made satellite launched into space (Kremlin.ru, February 20).... MORE

China is rapidly expanding its presence and control in Russia’s Trans-Baikal region. This drive is, in part, being driven by Beijing’s economic interests in Siberia and the Russian Far East as a whole. However, perhaps even more importantly, the trend is buttressed by the fact... MORE

Belarus’s ongoing drive to cautiously normalize relations with the West has raised concerns from Russian military intelligence, commonly known as the GRU, that Moscow is losing its influence over Minsk (see EDM, February 22). In response, some Russian think tanks have taken the initiative and... MORE

President Vladimir Putin’s address to the Federal Assembly (upper chamber of the Russian parliament), delivered by two weeks ago (February 20), was disappointing to each segment of its audience. The assembled elites and rank-and-file bureaucrats duly applauded Putin’s instructions to channel more funds to social... MORE

The Ukrainian parliament adopted several symbolic amendments to the Constitution, on February 7. The amendments, which President Petro Poroshenko signed into law on February 19, aim to make Ukraine’s strategic course toward the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union irreversible (Ukrinform.net, February... MORE

Currently, Moscow has 21 military bases abroad, but only a handful are beyond the borders of the former Soviet space and none is equivalent to the size and capacity of the more than 200 bases the United States maintains around the world. But given President... MORE

At the February 27 meeting of Russia’s top military chiefs (the Defense Ministry Collegium), the minister of defense, Army General Sergei Shoigu, described mounting external military threats in an unstable and unpredictable world. In his opening remarks, which were reported by the defense ministry’s press... MORE