In Kabardino-Balkaria, as in other republics of the North Caucasus, public debate intensifies from time to time regarding republican residents going off to fight in the Syrian civil war on the side of the rebels. But at the same time, the republic is still dealing... MORE

Chemical, metallurgical and cement plants may soon be transferred from their current locations across northern China to the Russian Far East. This was the agreement reached in early April 2016, during Russian Minister for Far East Development Alexander Galushka’s visit to Beijing. The feasibility of... MORE

This week marked the 30th anniversary of the April 26, 1986, Chernobyl reactor meltdown—a nuclear disaster that saturated northern Ukraine, southern Belarus and parts of western Russia with radioactivity in the worst fallout in human history. But in the present atmosphere of acute anti-Western sentiment... MORE

On April 21, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka delivered his annual “report to the Belarusian people and the National Assembly [parliament].” When speaking about the economy, Lukashenka did not use the words “crisis” or even “decline”; yet, he recognized the country’s inadequate labor productivity and competitiveness (Tut.by,... MORE

On April 14, Ukraine’s parliament replaced the cabinet of unpopular Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk with one headed by Volodymyr Hroysman, who had served as parliament speaker since November 2014. A former mayor of President Petro Poroshenko’s electoral and business stronghold of Vinnytsya, Hroysman has always... MORE

A large-scale scandal was unleashed in Karachaevo-Cherkessia, after the republican branch of the United Russia party refused to register a popular politician, Aliy Totorkulov, as a candidate in the party’s primaries. Totorkulov is the chairman of the Russian Congress of Peoples of the Caucasus and... MORE

The renewed violence in Azerbaijan’s separatist region of Karabakh (see EDM, April 6) is attracting attention to three larger problems in other parts of the former Soviet space: the existence of ethnic exclaves in neighboring countries, the continuing failure of the states of the region... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here. Although its power seems firmly entrenched, Vlad Plahotniuc’s government needs some external legitimacy and urgent financial support. Romania seems to be the only possible recourse at this time (see Parts One... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. Romania has surged as a political player in the Republic of Moldova in recent months, for the first time in a quarter-century (see Part One in EDM, April 22). Two inter-related failures—that of the European Union’s Partnership Policy... MORE

On the night of April 20, unidentified militants attacked the village of Juli in Dagestan’s Tabasaran district. The attackers robbed a local grocery store and shot up and set fire to several buildings. According to some accounts, the group consisted of four or five militants... MORE