Effective from October 7, Russia has banned the imports of Lithuanian dairy products. The Consumer Protection and Sanitary Inspectorate (Rospotrebnadzor) chief, Gennady Onishchenko, announced the ban, and now threatens to step up testing of Lithuanian meat and fish products at the border. Moscow has not... MORE

Police in Kabardino-Balkaria conducted operations against the armed resistance and took preventive measures to foil terrorist attacks in the republic throughout the month of September (https://kabardino-balkaria.kavkaz-uzel.ru/articles/172027/).At the start of October, a young man was killed in Kabardino-Balkaria’s Baksan district. According to police, he was driving... MORE

The Kremlin is demonstrating its growing anger with the European Union for encroaching onto the territory of the former Soviet Union, which Moscow considers its exclusive sphere of influence. An important summit between the EU and the Eastern Partnership countries (Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Belarus, Moldova... MORE

A senior executive at Russia’s state arms export company, Rosoboronexport, has said that Russia will sign a contract to sell the advanced Su-35 jet to China in 2014, while confirming that the deal is not on track to be finished in 2013 (RIA Novosti, September... MORE

In the week before the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit in Bishkek on September 12, Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping visited four countries on China’s western flank—Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan—and met their presidents. In between these visits, Xi attended the G20 summit in Moscow... MORE

Over the last few months, Mongolia has hosted or taken part in several multi-national military exercises with the aim to develop the Mongolian army’s peacekeeping abilities, as well as a way to leverage military-to-military ties as a tool of diplomacy. On August 10–13, Mongolia held... MORE

On October 4, the Moldovan government published the text of the agreement handing Chisinau International Airport to a Russian consortium, led by Khabarovsk-based Komaks, in an exclusive concession (Unimedia, October 4).Under the agreement, the Russian side shall operate the Chisinau airport for 49 years (until... MORE

On September 30, the commander of the Russian ground forces, Colonel-General Vladimir Chirkin, stated that troops under his command would take part in providing security to the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014 (https://www.itar-tass.com/c96/896137.html). The statement came amid a series of other statements by... MORE

On September 20–26, Russia carried out Zapad (“West”) 2013 military exercises with Belarusian forces. Though the training scenario envisioned repulsing an attack on Belarus by “terrorist” forces, Zapad 2013’s territorial scope, breadth of practiced operations, and the number of units and force types involved suggested... MORE

Moscow has always been extremely sensitive to any indication that the Polish government or Polish organizations are expanding their influence in the post-Soviet space through the support of ethnic minorities in what Russian commentators invariably see as a reprise of the Promethean League program of... MORE