*To read Part One, please click here. Cleavages along ethno-linguistic and territorial lines underlying party-political divisions are an enduring characteristic of Moldova’s elections, and were again starkly evident in the parliamentary campaign just concluded, on February 24 (see Part One, EDM, March 11). Within this... MORE

By mid-March 2014, Russian “little green men” took full control of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. And on March 18, President Vladimir Putin made a jubilant address to the Russian Federation Council (upper chamber of parliament) on the “reunification” with Crimea, asserting, “In people’s hearts and minds,... MORE

A major challenge for Central Asia’s oil and natural gas industry has always been how to transport petroleum products from the landlocked region to global markets. That issue resurfaced last week (March 6) in Uzbekistan, where a delay in building a pipeline to export more... MORE

President Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s seven-hour marathon with reporters, on March 1 (see EDM, March 7), continues to reverberate in the media. Most of the discussions fall within one of four discernible themes. The first has to do with Lukashenka’s expressed proposal to revise the constitution. He... MORE

The newly elected president of Georgia, Salome Zurabishvili, is using the first hundred days of her presidency to demonstrate her country’s ongoing commitment to integration into Euro-Atlantic structures. This was recently clearly evidenced by her visits to Brussels, Paris and Berlin. Some experts believe that... MORE

On February 26, the industrial director of the Rostec State Corporation, Sergey Abramov, declared that work on the fourth generation of the Ratnik future infantry combat system is underway. The system is said to include, among other advanced elements, a soldier’s exoskeleton as well as... MORE

Moldova’s just-concluded parliamentary elections (see EDM, February 26, March 11) have witnessed a “de-geopolitization” of the programs and appeals of political parties to voters. The parties have sidelined geopolitical agendas, moving social issues to the front and center stage. Domestic politics and foreign policies were... MORE

Expectations are high that Russia will attempt to interfere in the upcoming Ukrainian presidential elections, scheduled for March 31. Having failed, since 2014, to force Kyiv back into its orbit using purely military means, the Kremlin has been gearing up a broad spectrum of instruments—including... MORE

Transnistrian penetration of Moldova’s politics is a significant negative change ushered in by Moldova’s February 24 parliamentary elections. An unprecedentedly large number of Transnistrian residents were bussed across the demarcation line and voted as instructed for certain Moldovan candidates, obscure figures completely unknown to Transnistrian... MORE

Moldova’s parliamentary elections, held on February 24 (three months after the quadrennial term’s expiry), have produced a “hung” parliament divided among four parties, greatly complicating the formation of a new coalition government. The Constitutional Court took its time until March 10 to validate the elections’... MORE