October 1 marked five years since the Georgian Dream (GD) coalition, led by Georgian billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, won its landslide victory against the ruling United National Movement in the 2012 parliamentary elections (Cec.gov.ge, 2012). GD ended UNM’s nine-year rule, representing modern Georgia’s first ever peaceful... MORE

The week-long Russian-Belarussian strategic military exercise Zapad 2017 attracted close attention in Ukraine and the member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). But this topic did not simply disappear after the formal end of the exercises on September 20; experts and analysts are... MORE

Russian officials are insisting, and many commentators are accepting without question, that the reduction in the fall draft quota this year shows Moscow is on course to meet President Vladimir Putin’s promise in 2012 to end the military draft entirely by 2020 and to have... MORE

Veteran career diplomat Ambassador John Tefft (68), who was pulled out of retirement to man the United States’ Moscow mission in 2014, following the acute crisis precipitated by Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the onset of the war in the Donbas, left the Russian capital... MORE

The joint Russian-Belarusian Zapad 2017 war games, which ran during September 14–20, inspired a wide-ranging debate about the nature and geopolitical realities of Belarusian statehood and independence. Thus, according to the Belarusian military analyst Alexander Alesin, the Kremlin had evinced utmost irritation with Minsk because,... MORE

The Russian government recently announced a hike in excise duties on ga­soline. The overall retail price will increase by more than a ruble per liter (6.5¢/gallon), or by around 2.5 percent of its current market price, by the end of the next year (Ekho Moskvy,... MORE

Despite the multiplicity of major and urgent international crises around the globe, Russia still finds time to invest its political resources in Venezuela’s long-running collapse. Indeed, Russian President Vladimir Putin is meeting with his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolás Maduro, today (October 4), in Moscow, to discuss... MORE

Following the death of Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov, in September 2016, his successor, Shavkat Mirziyaev, has begun cautiously reversing many of his predecessor’s nationalist policies. Among the most striking turnarounds to date is the joint five-day Russian-Uzbekistani military exercise, which began on October 3, at... MORE

The joint strategic Russian-Belarusian military exercise Zapad 2017 (“West” 2017), which took place on September 14–20, is worth studying in detail because of what it reveals about Moscow’s likely military operations in the westward direction in the event of a regional crisis. At the same... MORE

The Arctic icepack is retreating faster than anyone expected. But at the same time, Russia has failed to set up reliable guidance and communications networks along the Northern Sea Route (a maritime passage that mainly hugs Russia’s northern coast). These factors, combined with China’s desire... MORE