Several weeks ago, during the annual St. Petersburg Economic Forum (June 1–3), Vitaly Savelyev, the director general of Russia’s flag carrier, Aeroflot, confirmed a fact that was already well known to industry insiders: experienced airline pilots are becoming a rare asset in Russia, since too... MORE

On June 14, during the first international Global Cybersecurity Summit, in Kyiv, the secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council, Oleksandr Turchynov, stated that “Ukraine has become a playground for the testing of the most up-to-date cyber techniques” by the Russian Federation (Ukrinform.ru,... MORE

The Circassian national movement in the North Caucasus as well as in the diaspora is on the rise. In part, this trend is powered by new activism among Circassian young people, who, reports show, are increasingly turning away from an Islamic to an ethno-national identity.... MORE

As Russia’s Armed Forces await the details and specific implications of the new State Armaments Program to 2025 (Gosudarstvennaya Programma Vooruzheniya—GPV), there is widespread expectation that the military will receive more high-precision strike systems to complement its efforts to develop greater operational capabilities (Utro.ru, June... MORE

In recent weeks, Moldova has been dealing with one foreign policy scandal after another. Relations with Russia, the United Kingdom, the European Union, the Council of Europe and even the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have all been strained to varying degrees.... MORE

President Vladimir Putin’s annual call-in show (this year held on June 15) directed at the citizens of Russia, who can ask him any kind of question, was meant to offer a bit of fresh excitement to the boring summer political season. But Putin’s televised performance ended... MORE

The recent decision by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to ban popular Russian social networks VKontakte (VK) and Odnoklassniki, on May 15 (see EDM, June 7), provoked serious debate both inside Ukraine and abroad. Now that the initial anxiety over that ban has somewhat subsided, it... MORE

President Vladimir Putin (64) has not yet officially announced whether he will run for a fourth term as head of state on March 18, 2018. During the traditional annual nationwide live multi-hour televised phone-in, held this year on June 15, Putin did not announce his... MORE

Twice in the past several weeks, Russian intrusions put the Baltics on high alert. On June 1, several Russian soldiers, traveling from the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad without transit permits, were stopped in Lithuania (Apollo.lv, June 2). A week later, two Goryn-class tugboats—the MB-119 and... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting on May 22, in Sochi, where he called for broadening the use of space technologies to improve the domestic economy and national defense, specifically referring to ballistic missile launch sensing satellites. He called for having at least 15... MORE