President Vladimir Putin has made Russian development and control of the Northern Sea Route (NSR) one of his top priorities. In his remarks on this topic, Putin has regularly projected enormous growth in the transit of cargo along the NSR on Russian ships in the... MORE

Nikolai Statkevich, a leader of the opposition Belarusian National Congress, warned in late December 2018 that, if Moscow sends troops into Belarus in an effort to annex it, Belarusians would resist and ensure that their country would not be “a second Crimea” but rather “a... MORE

The main political theme in Georgia in recent days has been the position of the Georgian Orthodox Church (GOC) regarding the recognition of the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Church. On December 27, the Georgian Patriarchate declared that the Holy Synod—the main decision-making body of the... MORE

Azerbaijan saw several important events in 2018—both domestic and external and sometimes interlinked. And a major takeaway from contextualizing the past year has been Baku’s cautious optimization of its existing balanced foreign policy. In particular, when looked at together, the events of 2018 suggest that... MORE

Uzbekistan’s President Shavkat Mirziyoyev delivered his annual State of the Nation address on December 28, 2018. One area of focus in his speech was the decentralization of presidential power. Mirziyoyev’s true views on the issue surfaced when he went off script and revealed his frustrations... MORE

Unlike the year before, Russia entered 2019 with low expectations and deepening disappointment in its own faltering revival. In contrast, the World Cup provided a focus for anticipation in 2018, and the presidential elections, pre-determined as the outcome was, raised hopes for increases of pensions... MORE

On February 24, 2019, Moldova will elect a new parliament based on a mixed electoral system adopted in July 2017 by the incumbent Democratic Party, led by oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc, and the nominally opposition Party of Socialists, controlled by President Igor Dodon. The new system... MORE

The bloc led by the leader of the “Velvet Revolution,” acting prime minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, quite predictably won a comfortable majority, obtaining 70.4 percent of votes in the snap parliamentary elections on December 9. The first session of the newly elected National Assembly,... MORE

Last Friday (December 7), Lithuania became the first country to impose new sanctions against Russia for its forceful and illegitimate action against three Ukrainian ships in the Kerch Strait on November 25 (RBC, December 7). This naval skirmish (see EDM, November 26, 28, 29) was... MORE

The Georgian opposition staged a rally, on December 2, in the center of the capital city of Tbilisi, protesting the outcome of last month’s presidential election. Demonstrators called for annulling the results of the vote as well as demanded early parliamentary elections (Agenda.ge, December 2).... MORE