The Russian government is considering building a new water link connecting the Caspian Sea to the ocean via the Azov and Black seas. The new route is supposed to be the shortest and the cheapest way to carry Chinese goods via Central Asia to Europe.... MORE

Ukraine has to generate $15.3 billion over four years with the help of a debt restructuring plan agreed, last March, with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF, which approved a new $17.5 billion loan for Ukraine and issued the first $4.9 billion tranche, expects... MORE

The European Commission delivered, on April 22, a “statement of objections” resulting from its probe launched back in September 2012, which amounts to charging Gazprom with abusing its dominant position on the gas market in several EU member states. The content of the charges has... MORE

Abkhazia, a former autonomous region of Georgia, was recognized as an “independent state” by Russia following the five-day Russian-Georgian war in August 2008. A couple weeks ago (April 10), the “prime minister” of Abkhazia, Artur Mikvabia, officially presented the self-proclaimed republic’s newest deputy prime minister,... MORE

This week (April 21), Russian prime minister and former president Dmitry Medvedev spent several hours presenting to the State Duma (lower house of parliament) the annual government report on policies and achievements in 2014, as required by the constitution. According to Medvedev, Russia is under... MORE

“Boring” is perhaps the prevalent impression of President Vladimir Putin’s televised four-hour-long Q & A session that aired last Thursday (April 16), which was meant to demonstrate his good health and relaxed attitude to the great many problems worrying his loyal subjects. The three key... MORE

In December 2014, Russian telecommunications company Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) resumed its business in Uzbekistan after a two-and-half-year absence. In 2012, Uzbekistan’s authorities had accused the company’s local subsidiary, Uzdunrobita (also known as MTS-Uzbekistan), of pursuing illicit financial schemes and illegally exploiting more than 250 base... MORE

On March 26–28, Kazakhstan’s Prime Minister Karim Massimov paid a working visit to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), first to discuss bilateral issues in Beijing and then to attend the 2015 Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) conference in the province of Hainan. Founded in... MORE

While Beijing officially supports Russia’s position on its annexation of Crimea, behind the scenes China is helping keep the battered Ukrainian economy afloat. On March 26, the Ukrainian government and China’s CITIC Construction (a subsidiary of CITIC Ltd.) signed a memorandum of understanding stipulating that... MORE

At present, news coming out of Belarus is marked by two particular refrains: the economic crisis and a search for national consolidation. These refrains may be interrelated since negative macroeconomic trends, coupled with a lack of structural reforms that would boost the private sector, make... MORE