“Getting Out From ‘In-Between’ ” was the suggestive title of a 2018 RAND Corporation study devoted to the former Soviet republics that became members of the European Union’s Eastern Partnership (EaP) initiative. The EaP just celebrated its tenth anniversary; and according to some not quite impartial... MORE

Moscow has organized and deployed a large network of “government-organized non-governmental organizations” (GONGO) in both Russia itself and in Belarus. These entities were first elaborated prior to the 2014 Russian attack on Ukraine to promote the integration and absorption of Belarus into the Russian Federation.... MORE

A long-awaited European Union–Azerbaijani strategic partnership agreement was not signed on May 13–14, at the Eastern Partnership’s (EaP) tenth anniversary summit, despite all the optimism and expectations that had been voiced earlier. The two sides signed a document listing four priority areas for partnership on... MORE

May 21 is the most unhappy day of the year for the more than half a million Circassians still living in their ancestral homeland and the more than five million who live in forced exile. On that date, in 1864—after a war that lasted more... MORE

On May 6, Turkish, Azerbaijani and Russian representatives met in Ankara and issued a joint memorandum on significantly transforming the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars (BTK) railway project. The Georgian leadership made clear that it was dissatisfied with the trilateral proposal, which was signed without Tbilisi’s consent (see EDM,... MORE

Representatives of Turkish, Azerbaijani and Russian railways inked a cooperation memorandum on May 6, 2019, in Ankara, to leverage the potential of the Baku–Tbilisi–Kars (BTK) railway and increase the volume of freight carried along the route (Azertag.az, May 6). “The tripartite cooperation will boost the... MORE

On May 4, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a press release to mark the 25th anniversary of the country’s partnership with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), calling it “one of the important directions” of the Azerbaijan’s “foreign and security policy” (Mfa.gov.az, May... MORE

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the administrative borders between the 15 constituent Soviet Socialist Republics became internationally recognized state borders. Yet, even during Soviet times, some of those administrative borders were, in places, fuzzy and uncertain—a problem inherited by many of the newly... MORE

Increasingly, one of the defining characteristics of Vladimir Putin’s leadership has been its propensity to push the narrative that the Kremlin has a special relationship with ethnic Russians and Russian speakers abroad, groups that Moscow typically lumps together as “the Russian World” (“Russkiy Mir”). Less... MORE

Even as Armenia and Azerbaijan have intensified their diplomatic contacts over the future status of the latter’s breakaway Karabakh region (see EDM, February 13, March 4, April 1), both rivals concurrently continue to consolidate their military capabilities, considering an escalation in tensions almost inevitable. Both... MORE