Two informative interviews on issues related to Belarus were published in mid-April. Given by Fyodor Lukyanov, the editor of Russia in Global Affairs and the chairman of the non-governmental organization (NGO) Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, as well as Svetlana Alexievich, the 2016 Nobel... MORE

This year’s FIFA soccer World Cup championship is being hosted by the Russian Federation, between June 14 and July 15. The quadrennial tournament will be held in eleven Russian cities, many of which are not particularly well known to people in the West. Hosting the... MORE

The popular mass protests that forced former Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan to resign as the newly installed prime minister of that country—a tactic he copied from Vladimir Putin (albeit with an added change to the constitution) to keep himself in power (see EDM, April 23)—may... MORE

After Serzh Sargsyan’s second presidential term ended on April 9, the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) appointed him the country’s new prime minister by a vote on April 17 (Public Radio of Armenia, April 17). Armen Sargsyan (not related), previously nominated by Serzh Sargsyan... MORE

Grand geopolitical scheming took a break in Moscow last week. The main news—improbably—turned to the fiasco of the government trying, since April 16, to ban the popular instant messenger Telegram. Millions of Russians remain blissfully unaware about this “state failure,” but probably as many others... MORE

The Second Investigation Department under the Ministry of National Defense published its annual report, the “National Threat Assessment 2018,” on March 26 (Vsd.lt, March 26). This year, Lithuania is celebrating its centenary of independence. And since during the last century, the country was only truly... MORE

Russia’s shipbuilding program for 2011–2020, under which the country plans to build over 100 new warships (Military Paritet, February 7, 2012), is reportedly causing “a very bad feeling” among some Russian naval experts (Topwar.ru, August 10, 2016). They describe the current status of the Russian... MORE

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