On October 31, a Russian charter passenger jet, Airbus A321 Metrojet Flight 9268, disintegrated in midair some 23 minutes after takeoff from the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg, Russia, killing all 224 people on board, mostly Russian tourists. Metrojet Flight 9268 crashed... MORE

Moldova is experiencing a political coup, executed by billionaire Vlad Plahotniuc’s team within the “pro-Europe” coalition government, and coordinated with leftist and pro-Russia parties in the parliament and outside it. The aim of this operation is to expand and guarantee Plahotniuc’s control of Moldova’s state... MORE

Many young Dagestani men wish to serve as conscripts in the Russian army, but are rejected on the grounds of their ethnic identity. In the fall of 2015, Moscow ordered the authorities to supply 1,500 conscripts for the Russian armed forces. During this past spring’s... MORE

Ethnic-Russian flight from the Far East is again increasing, after appearing to stabilize a few years ago. This development not only changes the balance of ethnic groups living there—few non-Russians are leaving, and many have higher fertility rates than the Russians—but also shifts the region’s... MORE

Moldova seems about to become the second state in Europe’s East, after Georgia, to be captured by the wealthiest local businessman—in Moldova’s case, the billionaire Vlad Plahotniuc. He and Georgia’s Bidzina Ivanishvili share some common traits, including their lack of commitment to a European orientation.... MORE

On October 27 in the Minsk Contact Group, the Ukrainian delegation presented a concept document to serve as a basis for the “law on local elections in the temporarily occupied areas” of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk provinces (see accompanying article). President Petro Poroshenko has personally... MORE

Recasting Russia’s armed proxies as democratic mandate-holders—and tutoring them to look like that on an election’s schedule—is an innovation of the Minsk armistice and ensuing negotiations on the status of the occupied territories in Ukraine’s east. Russia had never seriously attempted to sell this approach... MORE

Amid the continuing rift between Russia and the West, Russian authorities have cracked down on the remaining non-profit organizations with foreign funding operating in the North Caucasus. Russia’s Justice Ministry identified non-profit organizations from Karachaevo-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria and Chechnya as “foreign agents,” which will automatically lead... MORE

Even as President Xi Jinping underscored China’s commitment to reform and globalization during his high-profile trips to the United States and Britain over the past two months, the Fifth Generation leader has masterminded a pronounced shift to conservative ideals that are reminiscent of the Mao... MORE

China has set the tone for government policy over the next five years with the announcement of the results of the Fifth Plenum of the 18th Chinese Communist Party (CCP) (State Council Information Office, October 30). Amid the various announced plans for increased transparency, a... MORE