The ongoing COVID-19 crisis notwithstanding, Ukrainian politics has thoroughly entered campaign mode with local elections scheduled for this coming October. According to the Kyiv-based pollster Rating Group, as of a month ago, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s party, Servant of the People, registers 29.3 percent support among... MORE

The protests in Khabarovsk and other Russian cities in Siberia and the Far East over the last month (see EDM, August 3) have called attention to something that has been a problem for the central Russian government since at least the 19th century and will... MORE

Demonstrations in Khabarovsk Krai, prompted by the July 9 arrest of regional governor Sergei Furgal, have become among the largest and longest of recent protest actions inside the Russian Federation, already having lasted several weeks (see EDM, July 20). According to several sources, on various... MORE

The case of the 33 associates of the Russian private military company (PMC) Wagner Group, apprehended in a sanatorium (a cross between a recreational and a medical facility) in Zhdanovichi, a suburb of Minsk (see EDM, July 30), has so far resembled a captivating detective... MORE

Introduction Throughout June and July, much of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has experienced heavy rainfall from the annual late spring – early summer East Asian rainy season, a phenomenon sometimes called the “plum rain” (梅雨, meiyu). This year, the rainfall has brought severe... MORE

With less than a fortnight to go before Belarus’s presidential elections on August 9, predictions remain uncertain. On the one hand, the incumbent President Alyaksandr Lukashenka will almost surely win—perhaps with as much as around 80 percent of the vote. But on the other hand,... MORE

Many in Baku, Yerevan, Moscow and the West have expressed surprise at the Russian government’s efforts to remain neutral in the face of new fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan. But in fact, Russian military commentator Aleksandr Staver says, Moscow has always had good reasons to... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   Moldova’s ACUM (“NOW”) bloc of two parties led a minority government in June–November 2019, with parliamentary support from President Igor Dodon’s Socialist Party. After five months in office, however, then–prime minister Maia Sandu unilaterally terminated that arrangement... MORE

On June 29, the Georgian parliament finally approved the Western-mediated electoral reform amendment to the Constitution, with 117 deputies voting in favor and 3 opposed. The passage of the amendment was made possible thanks to the votes of the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) majority and... MORE

Following the outbreak of deadly Armenian-Azerbaijani border clashes on July 12 (see EDM, July 14, 16, 20 [1][2]), Russia’s state energy giant Gazprom reported that its local natural gas pipelines in Armenia were damaged, due to the shelling (TASS, RBC, July 14). Furthermore, the Moscow-led... MORE