Irreconcilable street protests in Georgia have continued into their sixth straight week, with demonstrators demanding the resignation of Interior Minister Giorgi Gakharia. Opposition and civil society activists accuse Minister Gakharia of ordering the brutal dispersal of a mass rally on June 20 (see EDM, June... MORE

Introduction Beijing is preparing for a host of major meetings and anniversaries in the months ahead. The first of these will be the annual senior leadership summer retreat at the Beidaihe resort in early August, when current Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Politburo members meet with... MORE

Editor’s note: This is the first part of a two-part article that addresses the efforts of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to deal more effectively with the challenges of mental health, which can have serious impacts on the morale and readiness of individual service members—and... MORE

Following a series of protests and heightened tensions earlier this year at the Davit Gareja/Keshikchidag monastery complex (see EDM, May 14, June 6), which straddles the border between Azerbaijan and Georgia, an even more serious incident occurred there on July 15. That day, a group... MORE

Russian President Vladimir Putin constantly talks about how his country is building up its Armed Forces and supplying them with super weapons, but Russia’s defense industry is increasingly incapable of making those promises a reality. With growing debt (because the state has yet to pay... MORE

Since Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian Crimea, in 2014, the peninsula’s most important port city of Sevastopol has largely escaped close international scrutiny. In some sense, this is understandable—compared with the “Republic of Crimea” (as the rest of the peninsula was renamed by the occupying Russian... MORE

The now-annual Russian naval parade in St. Petersburg—which has become a new tradition for the country—was held last Sunday (July 28). But a day earlier, an opposition rally was crudely suppressed in Moscow; and this non-event might turn out to be far more consequential for... MORE

Kazakhstan’s political life has entered a somnolent mood after both chambers of parliament wrapped up their legislative work on July 5 until September and President Kassym-ZhomartTokayev subsequently took his first vacation—albeit only for four days (July 22–26) and without going any farther than the Caspian... MORE

Recent Western commentary suggests that Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing to change parliamentary election rules after his second two-term tenure in the Kremlin finally expires in 2024; but such news is hardly revelatory. In Russia, this scenario has been debated by experts since his... MORE

The case of a well-connected Moscow researcher who said last week (July 20) that Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, the president of Turkmenistan, had died—only to apologize when it became obvious that he was actually still alive—highlights something far more important than a mere academic mistake. Turkmenistan, perhaps... MORE