Because oil and natural gas are Russia’s largest exports (Gks.ru, accessed April 3), it is entirely understandable that Moscow’s efforts to build pipelines to the West bypassing the three Baltic States and Ukraine continue to attract a great deal of attention. But much less attention... MORE

On March 24, the chief of the Russian General Staff (CGS), Army General Valery Gerasimov, delineated current top brass thinking on future warfare. Gerasimov placed his remarks within the context of Russia’s deteriorating relations with the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).... MORE

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman stated, on March 26, that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is considering signing a new long-term agreement with Russia and other non-OPEC members. This accord that would allow the group to control prices on the international... MORE

Moscow announced last week (March 29) that 60 American diplomats would be expelled, delivering a “mirror” response to every Western country that had sanctioned Russia in solidarity with the United Kingdom (see EDM, March 29). What appeared to be a tit-for-tat response in a diplomatic... MORE

Russia has pledged to transfer 44.8 square miles of Baikonur Cosmodrome territory and two Zenit-M rocket launch platforms to Kazakhstan by the end of May 2018 (Izvestia, March 1). This became possible thanks to the recent amendments to the lease agreement between the two countries,... MORE

The Moscow-backed authorities of separatist South Ossetia released, on March 23, Georgian citizens David Gerkeuli and Iosif Gundishvili (Imedinews March 23). The two men had been arrested by South Ossetian KGB agents (the special service of this breakaway republic still carries the old Soviet name)... MORE

A new scandal is adding fuel to the fire of Russian fears about Chinese penetration of Siberia and the Russian Far East. The Russian media in those regions is reporting that in order to sell Russian agricultural products to China—something that benefits both local oligarchs... MORE

The strong demonstration of Western solidarity with the United Kingdom in response to the March 4 poisoning of double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, England, by a nerve agent known as “Novichok,” secretly developed in the Soviet Union, has apparently caught... MORE

During his recent visit to Yerevan, the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Federation Council of Russia, Konstantin Kosachev, stated that Russian weapons sales to Azerbaijan are carried out within the framework of agreements that were reached prior to the so-called “four days... MORE

Turkmenistan’s President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow visited the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait in mid-March as part of a campaign to revive a long-stalled natural gas pipeline from his country to Pakistan and India (Neftegaz.ru, March 16). The visit occurred three weeks after a February 23 groundbreaking... MORE