Last week’s (May 10) visit of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to Washington to meet with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson as well as President Donald Trump in the White House was seen in Moscow as the beginning of the long-awaited defrosting of previously... MORE

The year 2017 will probably finally see the new landing ship Ivan Gren handed over to the Russian Navy. This vessel was long fraught with delays and mishaps on its way from the shipyard to the Ministry of Defense (SM News, May 2). In September,... MORE

The One Belt, One Road summit, held in Beijing on May 14–15, was supposed to be a celebration of China’s major Eurasian developmental initiative (Xinhua, May 16). But at least to outsiders, it may not have turned out this way. European reservations hindered the acceptance... MORE

The trial related to the most shocking crime committed in Armenia in recent years—the murder of a family of seven, including two babies, by a Russian soldier stationed at the 102nd military base at Gyumri (see EDM, January 16, 2015; January 30, 2015)—has reached a... MORE

Following the adoption of a new Information Security Doctrine, in December 2016 (see EDM, December 16, 2016), Russian President Vladimir Putin has recently approved a new Strategy for the Development of an Information Society for 2017–2030 (Pravo.gov.ru, May 10). This document replaces the previous version... MORE

Like the tsarist authorities who expelled the Circassians from the North Caucasus in 1864, an action many refer to as an “act of genocide,” and the Soviet ones who divided that nation up into a series of smaller ethnic communities, including the Adygei, the Kabardin,... MORE

The Kremlin continues to cling to hopes that it can build a rapport with the Donald Trump administration; those expectations copiously developed at the start of the year, only to succumb to one cold shower after another since then. Yuri Ushakov, President Vladimir Putin’s long-serving... MORE

At the end of April, China’s Defense Ministry announced it would be conducting “live fire drills” near the border with North Korea (MOD, April 27). This followed weeks of rumors that the PLA was deploying in large numbers close to the Korean peninsula, which the... MORE

May 6 saw a protest on Moscow’s Sakharov Prospekt under the banner “against political repression.” The march was unremarkable except for the fact that it indicated the apparent decisive reuniting of the liberal and extreme nationalist components of the opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin.... MORE

At a recent meeting of the defense ministry collegium, Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defense minister, noted that new multi-purpose frigates, similar to the Admiral Gorshkov–class, equipped by high-precision long-range weapons, should become the main combat ships of the Russian Navy (Mil.ru, Flot.com, April 21; see EDM,... MORE