The fruits of President Vladimir Putin’s “victory” at the meeting with President Donald Trump in Helsinki, Finland, on July 16, are turning increasingly bitter for Russia as initial dismay and angry responses in the United States have continued to coalesce into strong pushback (see EDM,... MORE

On July 27–28, Ukrainian Orthodox Christians will celebrate the 1,030th anniversary since the medieval Eastern European state of Kievan Rus was baptized by Volodymir the Great in the tenth century. Two different confessions of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church—one belonging to the Moscow Patriarchate and the... MORE

Every six months, the Russian government conscripts a new cohort of soldiers for its armed services. For the last five years, since the military draft was renewed across the North Caucasus, the enlistment quotas for republics there have been raised and lowered erratically. This has... MORE

In the past several days, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the first deputy defense minister and chief of the General Staff, General Valery Gerasimov, went on an unprecedented joint trip to Israel, Germany and France to promote a new plan to rebuild Syria and... MORE

The so-called “Arab Spring” and subsequent mass-protest-driven developments in the Middle East as well as across the post-Soviet space have alarmed Russian military strategists. In Moscow, the notion of “hybrid warfare”—which, in the Russian reading, represents a combination of coordinated military and non-military measures (Voenno-Promyshlennyy... MORE

Tajikistan’s Armed Forces began a four-day joint training exercise, on July 17, with forces from Russia’s 201st military base, located on the territory of this Central Asian republic. Notably, the exercise, for the first time, took place along the Afghan border in Tajikistan’s mountainous eastern... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree, on July 11, appointing Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak his “Representative for the development of commercial-economic relations with the Republic of Moldova” (Pravo.gov.ru, July 12). The Kremlin’s new representative to Moldova is known, in part, for having promoted,... MORE

At the July 16 summit in Helsinki, a Russian journalist asked United States President Donald Trump, who had come there to meet with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, about the US leader’s earlier accusation (Sputnik News, July 11) that Germany is “controlled by Russia” due to its... MORE

The summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Helsinki last Monday (July 16) continues to generate strong international resonance, despite apparently producing few if any tangible results. In Washington, politicians and experts are at odds about interpreting Trump’s bonhomie with Putin shown at... MORE

One of the distinctive features of a highly militaristic state is that it is ready to propose a military response to any challenge. While addressing the Federal Assembly (upper chamber of the Russian parliament) on March 1 (see EDM, March 1, 5, 8), President Vladimir... MORE