President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has appointed former president Leonid Kravchuk as chairperson of Ukraine’s delegation to the Minsk Contact Group, the forum that negotiates solutions to Russia’s undeclared war against Ukraine. Concurrently, Zelenskyy has appointed former prime minister Vitold Fokin as a member of this delegation.... MORE

Mahatma Gandhi may never actually have said of colonized peoples that “first, the imperial authorities ignore you; then, they laugh you; then, they fight you; and then, you win”; but this observation nonetheless aptly fits Moscow’s evolving relationship with the Circassians. The Russian center had... MORE

Central Asia is suffering a significant economic downturn precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic that will deepen during the coming months (The Astana Times, May 5; Imf.org, July 2020). The health crisis could also have a profound geopolitical effect in the region. As the United States... MORE

Sunday, August 9, was election day in Belarus. The official result: 80.8 percent for the incumbent, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, and 10.09 percent for his main challenger, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya. Six percent of eligible Belarusians voted against all candidates (there is such an option), so the remaining... MORE

The Russian Security Council held a virtual session last Friday (August 7), and President Vladimir Putin opened with the proposal to discuss the “international situation in general”; if his subordinates had any other business, it could be discussed “in a routine manner” (Kremlin.ru, August 7).... MORE

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