*To read Part One, please click here.   President Igor Dodon and his Socialist Party are governing Moldova without a parliamentary majority of their own and having to face two years of serial elections (February 2019 parliamentary elections, October 2019 country-wide local elections, November 2020... MORE

On February 18, President Vladimir Putin signed an ukaz (executive order) dismissing his long-time cohort and political advisor Vladislav Surkov (55). The Kremlin tradition known as nomenklatura requires that someone dismissed from a top job be immediately provided with another one. A couple of weeks... MORE

On February 11, in Chisinau, President Igor Dodon assembled Moldova’s ambassadors accredited abroad and delivered policy guidelines to them in two speeches: one to the plenary conference and another to Moldova’s ambassadors accredited to European institutions, European Union member states and other Western countries. These... MORE

Vladimir Putin is a specialist at “hybrid” operations, in which the nominal goal of any move covers up his real methods and motives. He has launched another such effort in Sochi, where his government is using plans for the construction of a new railroad as... MORE

Introduction In his telephone conversation with President Trump on February 6, Chinese Communist Party (CCP)  General Secretary Xi Jinping expressed confidence that Beijing can beat the coronavirus outbreak, and asserted that “the fact that China’s economy will be better in the long run will not... MORE

On January 30, the Russian government approved a number of acts concerned with rendering new economic benefits and subsidies to businesses or investors willing to engage in projects in the country’s High North. The adopted proposals were jointly prepared by the Ministry of Finance (Minfin),... MORE

On the night of February 7–8, in the city of Masanchi, in eastern Kazakhstan near the border with Kyrgyzstan, several hundred ethnic Kazakhs and ethnic Dungans clashed. They exchanged gunfire and, as a result, at least eight people died and dozens more were hospitalized. Numerous... MORE

Russian experts have compiled a list rating the relative levels of intra-elite conflict plaguing southern Russia, including the republics of the North Caucasus. According to this ranking (produced by a group of researchers headed by the Expert Analytical Center “South”), political and business elites in... MORE

Just as the single blade of grass, no matter how small, inevitably breaks through a concrete walkway, no matter how thick, so, too, the Circassian nation is now overcoming a long history of repression and domination. Since the beginning of its contact with the Russian... MORE

In 2019, Armenia’s economic situation markedly improved, registering GDP growth of 6.5 percent, a stable financial system, upgraded credit ratings, higher budget revenues and reduced public debt (Emerging Europe, December 30, 2019). According to a poll conducted in September and October by the International Republican... MORE