Moscow is again stirring the pot in northeastern Estonia, trying to pit the ethnic-Russian community there against Tallinn. And it is doing so in the classic tradition of Vladimir Putin’s “hybrid” war: specifically, Russia is using a report prepared by the Estonian Security Police that... MORE

Every year, the Russian Armed Forces stage a large-scale training exercise to serve as the pinnacle of the combat training season. These annual major exercises are held, on a rotational basis, across Russia’s various military districts (MD), which also allows the General Staff to test... MORE

Sunday’s (September 18) parliamentary elections in Russia were preceded by perhaps the country’s most listless and dullest campaign in years. The official results rather persuasively underscore this characterization. For the third time in a row, the same four parties—United Russia (officially having received 54.28 percent... MORE

Last Sunday (September 18), Russians went to the polls to elect the seventh State Duma in the post-Soviet history of their state. It is extremely difficult to say how many of them actually cast ballots because the official preliminary data on voter participation (47.8 percent,... MORE

Antonov, Ukraine’s only designer and manufacturer of aircraft, has severed all ties with Russia, which had been its main market and partner for decades (Ukrayinska Pravda, September 10). This was unavoidable, given the de facto war waged by Moscow, which prompted Kyiv to stop Ukrainian... MORE

Starting in 2014, the jamaats of the armed Islamist underground movement in the North Caucasus began, one by one, to pledge allegiance to the so-called Islamic State (IS). Kabardino-Balkarian insurgents split into those who became part of the Islamic State and those who remained loyal... MORE

As the dust settled, following the conclusion of the September 5–10 Kavkaz 2016 military exercise, the Russian Armed Forces entered into a budgetary battle with the Ministry of Finance. Russian Duma elections are scheduled for next Sunday (September 18); therefore, the process of drafting a... MORE

Since 2013, when no-notice “snap” exercises were first introduced, they have become a regular feature in the training of the Russian Armed Forces. These more-or-less comprehensive exercises—regardless of the number of troops and equipment involved—generally tend to follow the same pattern: participating units are alerted,... MORE

Moscow reacted harshly to North Korea’s most recent nuclear test. “Such explicit disregard for the norms of international law and the opinion of the international community merits the strongest possible condemnation,” the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared in a statement (Mid.ru, September 9). The... MORE

Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has been carrying on a rapprochement with the Vatican and has even been pushing for Pope Francis to visit Minsk (Interfax, May 23, August 19). Such efforts, along with discussions in the Belarusian media about the possibility of having the Belarusian... MORE