Less than ten days after Russia declined to cancel export duties on refined oil products that Belarus sells to the West (see EDM, May 9), President Alyaksandr Lukashenka managed to wrest some critical concessions from the Kremlin. Following his May 8 visit to Moscow, Lukashenka... MORE

Many observers see striking parallels between the situations in Ukraine and in the North Caucasus; and many, unsurprisingly, have started asking whether the annexation of Crimea and the fueling of separatism in southeastern Ukraine will have repercussions for Russia in the North Caucasus.At a conference... MORE

President Vladimir Putin and Russian diplomacy have recently invented the concept of “South-Eastern Ukraine” as a would-be political entity. Moscow promotes this idea as part of its project to dismantle the Ukrainian state through “federalization.”Following the overthrow of then-president Viktor Yanukovych by the Kyiv Maidan... MORE

On May 11, self-declared “people’s councils” purported to hold “referendums” in approximately 20 or 25 towns or parts thereof, held by armed rebels in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk provinces (Donbas) (see EDM, May 9). The organizers claimed high turnouts and an overwhelming affirmative answer to... MORE

Since the eruption of the Ukraine crisis, Russian and Western commentators have tried to define those elements of Russian actions and policymaking that constitute “new” factors in Moscow’s relations with the West and its neighbors. On May 9, for example, with the threat of further... MORE

On April 30, the board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved a new $17 billion loan for Ukraine, which will be disbursed over two years. Ukraine received the first tranche of this loan, equaling $3.2 billion, on May 6. The government will be able... MORE

Against the backdrop of persistent tension in Dagestan, rumors are spreading in the republic that Ramazan Abdulatipov will be replaced sometime in May. Zakir Magomedov, a commentator with the Dagestani newspaper Novoe Delo, argued Dagestan’s present leadership is solving Dagestan’s problems but that replacing Abdulatipov... MORE

Tanks and missiles rolled as usual through Moscow’s Red Square on May 9, marking Victory Day against Nazi Germany. In Russia, this commemoration has changed over the last decade from a moment of reflection on the great sacrifice that secured the destruction of Hitlerism to... MORE

On April 29, a meeting of the national leaders of the planned Eurasian Economic Community (EEC), Vladimir Putin of Russia, Nursultan Nazarbaev of Kazakhstan, and Alyaksandr Lukashenka of Belarus, took place in Minsk. From the Belarusian standpoint, it proved to be a disappointment. Specifically, the... MORE

On April 28, Kazakhstani President Nursultan Nazarbayev paid a working visit to Russia’s capital, where he delivered a lecture at the Moscow State University, twenty years after his first similar speech there in 1994. Rather expectedly, the president’s speech was dedicated to the issue of... MORE