Groups whose identities do not fit the mold others have for them often become problems for both their host countries and the different communities of which they are a part. In addition, they often make particularly tempting targets for interference by outsiders. One such group... MORE

Humor is a much more powerful “soft warfare” weapon in Russia’s hands than one might think. This month (March 2017), a team of academics from Latvia and Ukraine, in collaboration with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) Strategic Communications Center of Excellence (STRATCOM), presented their... MORE

Since the Russian seizure of Crimea, many Western analysts have come to habitually scrutinize the annual speeches of Army General Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff. This focus was initially prompted by his 2013 address to the Academy of Military Sciences and his... MORE

Ukraine’s DTEK Trading, owned by Rinat Akhmetov, and Moldova’s state-owned intermediary Energocom signed a one-year contract, on April 1, for the supply of electricity to Moldovan distributors. Energocom/DTEK’s only competitor was the Kuchurgan Power Station, which is located in Transnistria and belongs to the Russian... MORE

“Big mistake”—that was how Russian President Vladimir Putin recently described the determined efforts in the United States to investigate Russia’s interference in the US elections last year. He characterized the present level of bilateral relations as “close to zero” and warned that further “absurd” attempts... MORE

The first quarter of 2017 was marked by a renewed escalation of the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine. The increased military confrontation began in the vicinity of Donetsk, at the end of January, when saboteur-reconnaissance groups of Russia-backed militants made an attempt to seize the... MORE

On Sunday, March 26, tens of thousands of protesters gathered in the center of Moscow and in 80 other Russian regions to protest corruption in the top levels of government (see EDM, March 27). In some cities, the anti-corruption rallies and marches were allowed by... MORE

President Petro Poroshenko has banned cargo traffic between the areas held by Moscow-backed militants in the Donbas area and slapped sanctions on the Ukrainian subsidiaries of Russian state-owned banks. This appears logical, given the continuing Russian occupation of Crimea and assistance to the rebels. However,... MORE

The director of the Russian transport ministry’s Department of Maritime and River Transportation, Vitalii Klyuyev, spoke, on March 24, at the “LNG [liquefied natural gas] Bunkering Market as an Alternative” conference, in St. Petersburg. Klyuyev told participants that the world’s first LNG tanker specifically constructed... MORE

From the Russian Empire through the Soviet Union to the Russian Federation today, the central government of that country has always viewed Cossacks as part of the Russian nation, something the current rulers are even more interested in maintaining given Russian demographic decline (Nr2.lt, February... MORE