For Moscow, the first ten days of Donald Trump’s presidency raised enough uncertainty and speculation about his political course in general and intentions regarding Russia in particular to fill the usual benchmark of 100 days. Russian pundits now promise few if any miracles for their... MORE

Moldova’s recently elected, vocally pro-Russia head of state, Igor Dodon, paid an official visit to President Vladimir Putin, in Moscow, on January 16–19. It was an unusually long and elaborately staged affair for the president of a small pauper state. The Kremlin used the visit... MORE

The Roshen confectionery plant in the Russian city of Lipetsk will close in April for political and economic reasons, Roshen’s press service has announced. Production in Lipetsk has shrunk threefold since 2013 because of the sanctions imposed by Russia on imports from Ukraine, falling purchasing... MORE

Belarus’s already strained relations with Russia have recently deteriorated even further. Several new indications add to the previously compiled list (see EDM, January 18, 20). First, during a January 18 episode of the Russian talk show Pravo Golosa, a casual survey of the TV audience... MORE

Three years into war and domestic turbulence, Ukraine entered 2017 with news of a high-profile criminal incident. Serhiy Pashynsky, a notorious Ukrainian member of parliament (MP) from the People’s Front (PF) party, one of the ruling coalition’s two member-factions, shot and wounded Vyacheslav Khimikus, an... MORE

By approving additional defense spending in their national budgets for 2017, the Baltic States—Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia—strongly answered Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. Their budget figures, adopted this past December, mean not only greater resources for their own national defense, but also a significant step forward... MORE

Chinese President Xi Jinping was this year’s star guest at the World Economic Forum in Davos (January 17–20), where the mood of the traditional crowd of successful entrepreneurs and high-flying politicians was far from jubilant. The shadow of the inauguration of US President Donald Trump... MORE

Mukhammad Khangoshvili, a 24-year-old inhabitant of the village of Duisi, in Pankisi Gorge, Georgia, was killed, on November 7, 2016, in a bombing of the Islamic State’s (IS) positions in the Iraqi city of Mosul (News.ge, November 8, 2016). Khangoshvili previously served as a bodyguard... MORE

Incoming presidents put in place their own teams of subordinates and government functionaries; this is true for Uzbekistan as much as for the rest of the world. Since Shavkat Mirziyaev was sworn in as Uzbekistan’s new head of state on December 14, 2016, he has... MORE

Minsk has introduced visa-free regulations for entering Belarus for no more than five days, if arriving via Minsk National Airport, for citizens of 80 states. The decree applies to all of the European Union, the United States, Japan and many other countries (Belta.by, January 11,... MORE