The puppet government of Crimea has unexpectedly clashed with its bosses in Moscow. On July 7, Crimea’s governor, Sergey Aksyonov, declared he would not allow the Russian federal government to force its own rules on the peninsula. His comments came after Russia’s Federal Security Service... MORE

In his interview to Euroradio, the charge d’affaires of the European Union’s delegation in Belarus, Richard Rudolph, underlined the gradual improvement in the relationship between the EU and Belarus. But he also made the following observation regarding Belarus’s willingness to have good relations with both... MORE

The Greek government’s wide-ranging efforts to prevent the country’s financial collapse finally culminated in an agreement with the European Union, on July 13 (see EDM, July 14). The bailout deal provides new concessions regarding Greece’s debt. While the EU may have saved Athens from financial... MORE

The recent Chinese stock market crisis has exposed the fallacy of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) contention that it is possible to seek economic development and reform without commensurate political changes. That the authorities have to use a barrage of executive fiats–including deploying the police... MORE

The Azerbaijan-Georgia-Romania Interconnector (AGRI)—a liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, which aims to bring Azerbaijani gas and, in the future, gas from Turkmenistan to Romania and Hungary by way of Georgia and across the Black Sea—was at the center of attention of regional decision makers late... MORE

On July 8, Turkmenistan’s Ministry of Oil and Gas noted that Russian state natural gas company Gazprom had failed to pay for imports since the beginning of the year, stating, “The Russian company OAO Gazprom has failed to pay under its contracts for buying and... MORE

On June 26, the ideologue of free Cossakia Grigory Kuznetsov (a. k. a. Vladlen Alyabyev), reiterated his vision of an independent Cossack territorial entity in a brief manifesto. The Cossack leader did not explicitly state that Cossakia should seek independence from the Russian Federation, but... MORE

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, the United States’ ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, and Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev descended on Odesa in separate visits (July 2–July 8), to confer with Governor Mikheil Saakashvili there. Georgia’s former president aims to turn this undeveloped province of Ukraine into... MORE

Georgians have shown a keen interest in the events in far-away Greece, which has been on the verge of leaving the Eurozone, if not the European Union itself. All news programs on Georgian TV now routinely begin with the latest news about negotiations between EU... MORE

It appeared too great a temptation to pass up for the Kremlin when Greece’s impending default and exit from the Eurozone or even the European Union (the so-called Grexit) occurred simultaneously with the annual BRICS summit, this time under Russian leadership, in Ufa, on July... MORE