Latest Articles about Domestic/Social

State of Play Ahead of Moldova’s Parliamentary Elections
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

Armenia’s Revolutionary Government Wins Snap Elections
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

Russia Fruitlessly Prepares for New Sanctions
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

Georgian Opposition Refuses to Recognize Results of Presidential Election
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

Revolt of the ‘Disgruntled’: Russian Mercenaries Seek Justice in International Courts
A story that started on July 5, when the All-Russian Officers’ Assembly (a national war veterans’ organization) demanded that Moscow legalize so-called Private Military Companies (PMC) (see EDM, August 1) has received an unexpected update. On November 19, members of more than a dozen Russian... MORE

Is Chechnya Finally Going to Control Its Own Oil Reserves—and Thus Its Destiny?
In one pivotal scene in David Lean’s 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia, Thomas. E. Lawrence asks the British general in Cairo, Sir Edmund Allenby, to provide the Arab revolt with artillery. The general’s political advisor says that if he gives the Arabs artillery, he will... MORE

International Ramifications of Donetsk-Luhansk ‘Elections’
Russia has staged “republic“-level “elections” in Donetsk and Luhansk for the second time in four years, establishing a regular quadrennial electoral cycle there. This move is designed to perpetuate the “republics” de facto, institutionalizing them more firmly and exploiting a murky situation of undefined status... MORE

Russian Nationalist Group, Acting as a Private Military Company, Worries Kremlin
Private military companies (PMC), which the Kremlin has used with success in Ukraine, Syria, the Central African Republic and elsewhere, nonetheless constitute a potentially serious problem domestically for Russia. If they pursue their own goals, they can challenge the government’s monopoly on the legitimate use... MORE

Tragedy in Arkhangelsk Highlights Youth Radicalization, Holes in Russian Information Security Architecture
The deadly October 31 bombing of a local Federal Security Services (FSB) office in Arkhangelsk by 17-year-old student Mikhail Zhlobitsky, a member of an online anarchist community (Meduza.io, October 31; Crimerussia.com, November 1), underscored two serious threats facing the Russian authorities. First, the bomber’s identity... MORE

Georgia’s Hyper-Competitive Presidential Election: Prelude to Political Turmoil?
The second round of presidential elections in Georgia is scheduled to take place in a few weeks. The first round of voting, on October 28, did not reveal an outright winner. The candidate from the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party, former French ambassador to Tbilisi... MORE