Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili recently announced an “unprecedented” peace initiative aimed at the country’s occupied territories of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali Region (South Ossetia). The new initiative, made public during an April 4 cabinet meeting, is called “A Step Toward a Better Future.” The wide-ranging plan... MORE

President Alyaksandr Lukashenka held a press conference, on April 10, for Belarusian state-run media (Belta, April 10). Among the topics broached were the idea of changes to the constitution, the project of the new Law on Information, and March 25 Freedom Day as a would-be... MORE

Always a misnomer, albeit a deliberate one, Ukraine’s “Anti-Terrorist Operation”(ATO) in and surrounding the temporarily occupied territories of Luhansk and Donetsk is slated to come to an end as of April 30, 2018, some four years after it began. The ATO will cease both on... MORE

The March 25 centennial celebration of the Belarusian People’s Republic (BPR) has triggered multiple anxieties and is still reverberating emotionally in the Belarusian media and across online social networks. Somewhat unexpectedly, one epicenter of anxiety has become the speech by the founder and owner of... MORE

This year, Uzbekistan is organizing its first ever nation-wide al-Quran reciters competition (Muslim.uz, December 22, 2017). Perhaps this kind of competition would be a run-of-the-mill event in any other Muslim majority country; but for Uzbekistan, which is trying to unshackle itself from the repressive policies... MORE

The Georgian parliament plans to hold hearings, on April 18, regarding the State Security Service of Georgia’s (SSSG) recently published report detailing the risks and challenges to the country’s security. The report covers issues related to the occupied territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, terrorism,... MORE

Every April 7, Moldovans take stock of the progress the country has made since the youth protests of April 2009, which popularly became known as the “Twitter Revolution.” Nine years ago, this civil unrest led to the demise of Communist Party rule and ushered in... MORE

When a country is faced with demographic decline—an excess of deaths over births and a reduction in the number of individuals annually entering adulthood—one of the first areas its government must undertake hard choices is military conscription policy. That is exactly what the Russia government... MORE

The fact that, last Friday (April 6), the United States Department of the Treasury published a new list of severe sanctions targeting Russian businessmen, officials and companies came as no great shock—rumors about that looming punishment had been swirling around Moscow for weeks. The surprise... MORE

When, in October 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed Vladimir Vasilyev to take over from Ramazan Abdulatipov as head of the North Caucasus republic of Dagestan, there were widespread hopes and fears that Vasilyev would transform the local political elite by a wholesale replacement of... MORE