Until now, Georgia’s economic situation has been most clearly defined by its movement closer to Europe thanks to last year’s signing of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area agreement with the European Union (Slon.ru, July 21, 2014) as well as episodic disputes with its... MORE

President Vladimir Putin has been organizing so many military exercises in so many parts of the Russian Federation (see EDM, March 19)—a process that has required Moscow to shift units from one area to another—that it is virtually impossible to say just where he intends... MORE

The March 10–14 visit by Azerbaijani Defense Minister Zakir Hasanov to Croatia and Slovenia attracted little attention in the local media. However, various background developments in the wake of these meetings—held to discuss the potential directions of bilateral military cooperation (Mod.gov.az, March 11)—suggest that the... MORE

On March 4, Gogi Topadze, the leader of the Party of Industrialists and one of the key members of the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) coalition, delivered another diatribe against Georgia’ hopes for North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) membership. Topadze stated that Georgia’s NATO membership was... MORE

Following the recent (March 4) visit to Ankara by his counterpart from Turkmenistan, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced a trilateral mechanism on energy issues between Turkey, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan. He specifically noted that the three countries share a vision of transferring Turkmenistani... MORE

On February 16, the Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan addressed a letter to the speaker of the National Assembly, Galust Sahakyan, informing him about an executive decision to recall the Armenia-Turkey Protocols from the parliament. Signed in Zurich, in 2009, under the mediation of the United... MORE

One might expect that while Russia’s political, diplomatic, military and economic resources are tied down in its protracted war in Ukraine, the Kremlin would have difficulty focusing on other regions within the post-Soviet space. But even a casual glance at Russia’s recent activities in Georgia... MORE

On February 21, the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) devalued the country’s currency, the manta, by 33.5 percent against the US dollar, and 30 percent against the euro. On the day of the devaluation, the national currency was rated at 1.05 manat to the dollar,... MORE

On February 18, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the head of the “Ministry of Foreign Affairs of South Ossetia,” David Sanakoev, signed an agreement “On the State Border,” whereby Russia recognized the “state borders” of South Ossetia (Bigmir.net, February 20). A similar prepared treaty... MORE

A commonly held view in Russia is that the government consists of “a good tsar and bad boyars.” That is, the population tends to have a positive attitude about whoever sits at the top of the ruling hierarchy; while most, or even all, of the... MORE