The past two years have seen a steady rise in Russia’s willingness to deploy its navy into the Mediterranean, to Syria, and Cyprus in order to demonstrate Russian power, support the Bashar al-Assad government, check Turkish designs on Syria and Cyprus, and thwart Western intervention... MORE

Addressing Gazprom’s annual general meeting of shareholders, CEO Alexei Miller warned that Gazprom would “never again, under any circumstances” use Ukraine’s gas storage system in the process of delivering Russian gas to Europe via Ukraine (Kommersant-Ukraina, July 4; Nezavisimaya Gazeta, July 10; see EDM, July... MORE

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin appealed to a conference in Moscow on June 27 to close the military technology gap with the United States, in response to Washington allegedly developing the capability to destroy most of Russia’s nuclear forces within a few hours. The pseudo-paranoia,... MORE

Ukraine has recently initiated procurement of natural gas from European suppliers. These volumes are small but growing, correspondingly eroding Gazprom’s market share in Ukraine.The German Rheinisch-Westfaelisches Elektrizitaetswerk (RWE) is providing the volumes through its subsidiary, RWE Supply & Trading. Some of these gas volumes are... MORE

Ukraine stands on the threshold of finalizing the Association Agreement with the European Union, possibly signing it at the Vilnius summit in November. If signed, the agreement would open the way for European comprehensive support to the modernization of Ukraine’s gas transit system, which carries... MORE

On July 7, public protests against ethnic Chechens were held in the town of Pugachyov in Russia’s Saratov region. The protesters’ demands—that all ethnic Chechens in the town be deported and the inflow of North Caucasians end—found unusually strong support among the local residents and... MORE

Last Friday night (July 12), United States President Barack Obama took a deep breath and called Russian President Vladimir Putin, perhaps assuming that talking is better than trading invectives via press secretaries. No solution for Syria was invented (and none had been expected), and Obama’s... MORE

Many observers were surprised by rebel leader Doku Umarov’s videotaped statement recently posted on the Internet announcing an end to the moratorium on attacks on Russian territory (https://archive.org/details/AmirIkDokkuAbuUsmanOtmenilMoratorijNaOperaciiVRossii), but this announcement should have been expected by those who follow the developments in the region. The... MORE

Even though over the past several years militants in the North Caucasus have not adhered to their old tactic of intensifying attacks in the spring-fall period, observers still tend to expect some escalation in the warmer period of the year in comparison to the cold... MORE

On July 5, President Vladimir Putin had a meeting with Mikhail Fedorov, presidential advisor and chairman of the Presidential Council on human rights (Soviet po pravam chyeloveka or SPCh), Vladimir Lukin, the human rights commissioner of Russia, and former SPCh chairwoman Ella Pamfilova, whom Putin,... MORE