Over the last 30 years, Moscow has frequently sought to use the Christian Turkic Gagauz in Moldova, along with separatist Transnistria, as leverage to prevent or reverse Chisinau’s moves toward further integration with Romania and Europe (see EDM, January 27). But in recent days, with... MORE

As Russia continues to try to subjugate Ukraine in an unprovoked war of aggression, Belarus has endeavored to keep its options open (see EDM, April 18). Further evidence of this policy from Minsk came out on April 14, when Rikard Jozwiak, a Prague-based journalist of... MORE

Given the ostensible ties of Cossacks to the Don region, one might reasonably expect Russia’s state-organized Cossack movement to play a significant role in the battle for Ukrainian Donbas. And indeed, such expectations were borne out in a new report that “in recent times, in... MORE

On April 16, a multi-party delegation of the Georgian parliament, on a visit to Ukraine, traveled to the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, where, according to multiple Western governments and representatives of the International Criminal Court, the Russian occupying forces committed war crimes against the civilian... MORE

Since the beginning of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s large-scale and brutal re-invasion of Ukraine, the South Caucasus has inevitably received much less international attention. But tensions in the latter region have increased on three key levels: between Russia and the West, between Azerbaijan and Armenia,... MORE

By the time news of the Russian re-invasion of Ukraine became known in Moscow in the early morning of February 24, 2022, it was already afternoon in Siberia and the Urals. Residents of cities such as Irkutsk, Omsk and Yekaterinburg were the first to take... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. After Russia’s President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24 (Kremlin.ru, February 24), the Western economies introduce several rounds of increasingly harsh economic sanctions against the Russian Federation (Meduza, March 8). So far, Russia’s non-renewable... MORE

On February 24, without officially declaring war, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine (Dpsu.gov.ua, February 24). The aggressor attacked Ukraine by land, air and sea. But alongside those military operations, Russia continued to wage its warfare in the cyber and information domains. The Kremlin’s... MORE

Moscow has long counted on young males from the North Caucasus to ensure that each seasonal Russian military draft is filled. Men from that region typically view military service as a social lift out of the extreme poverty most find themselves in, a way of... MORE

In a store at one of Minsk’s shopping malls that sells Russian-made t-shirts decorated with a “Z,” the symbol of the Russian military offensive against Ukraine, the shop owner admitted to a journalist that she wholeheartedly backed Russia’s President Vladimir Putin but “we support the... MORE