Azerbaijan and the European Union launched negotiations on a strategic partnership agreement, on February 7, 2017 (Azertag, February 6; Azernews, February 14). Whereas Armenia concluded negotiations with the European bloc on a comprehensive and expanded partnership agreement, on February 27 (ArmenPress, Lragir.am, February 27). Both... MORE

Europe’s longest running conflict was reactivated in Karabakh on February 25, with cease-fire violations along the line of contact. The skirmishes lasted a few days and left several soldiers dead without yielding any other result. Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Defense stated its forces had “suffered losses”... MORE

Diplomats from the United States and Russian are preparing for US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s planned visit to Moscow next month (April 2017). Tillerson will be talking with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, and possibly meeting President Vladimir Putin. Traditionally, US Secretaries of State... MORE

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s visit to Moscow, on March 10, unsurprisingly generated a great deal of attention (Hürriyet, March 10). Indeed the bilateral Turkish-Russian relationship has been a game changer in Syria for some time. And the timing of the visit notably followed the... MORE

Moscow’s anxieties about Central Asia and its position there are becoming increasingly visible. And renewed charges of Russian imperial ambitions in the region and elsewhere clearly sting the Kremlin. Thus, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov felt obliged to denounce “allegations” about his country’s imperial ambitions, claiming,... MORE

Since 2012, there has been a debate in Russia regarding so-called private military companies, PMCs, known in Russia as Chastnye Voennie Companiy (ChVK); and several attempts were made in recent years at introducing legislation to govern their activities. Internationally, PMCs blossomed in connection with the... MORE

The government of the Russian Federation has approved the draft agreement between Russia and South Ossetia “on integrating some units of the Armed Forces of the Republic of South Ossetia [sic] into the structure of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.” The document has... MORE

Created in April 2016, the Russian National Guard (Rosgvardia—see EDM, April 7, 11, 12, 18, 2016) is turning into a much more formidable weapon in the hands of the Kremlin than was initially expected. If the most recent information pertaining to this structure proves correct,... MORE

Rosstat, the agency of the Russian government responsible for assembling and publishing statistics, increasingly issues figures at variance with reality. This restoration of a Soviet-era pattern simultaneously makes it more difficult for the Russian government to manage that country and far more difficult for analysts—both... MORE

As the Syrian civil war enters its seventh year (the conflict officially started on March 15, 2011, with mainly peaceful protesters in Damascus coming out into the streets to demand democratic reforms and the release of political prisoners), a potential peace deal remains out of... MORE