Tashkent’s recent diplomatic efforts to serve and actively pursue its vital national interests may best be described by the mantra “a strategy is always square, but tactics are always round.” The attendance of the president of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, at the most recent summit of... MORE

Russian ties with Japan have clearly suffered serious damage due to Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine. Apparently, there will not be a visit by Russian President Putin to Japan anytime soon, despite previous wishes for such a trip by both sides (Asahi Shimbun AJW, September 24).... MORE

Someone looking at a map of the Caucasus would be surprised to see that only three transportation links cut across the Main Caucasus Ridge connecting the North and South Caucasus. This was not always the case. Prior to the Russian conquest of the North Caucasus... MORE

Dagestan’s gross regional product is a little more than $2,000 per capita. By many economic indicators, Russian economists say, Dagestan is not only far behind many other Russian regions, but is at the level of some of the world’s poorest nations. Economic underdevelopment has been... MORE

On September 22, the Belarus-USA Investment Forum was held at the Grand Hyatt hotel in midtown Manhattan. The forum featured speakers such as Belarusian Prime Minister Mikhail Myasnikovch, Economy Minister Nikolay Snopkov, Development Bank chairman Sergei Roumas, as well as Minsk-based High Tech Park Director... MORE

On September 9, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani paid his first official visit to Kazakhstan since taking office last August, when he succeeded the much abrasive Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This visit took place against the backdrop of a new round of direct talks between Tehran and the... MORE

As a result of the confluence of two developments, one welcome and encouraging and the other dangerous and worrisome, the airline that had maintained a route between Simerfopol (the capital of Crimea) and Turkey is ending that service. Andrey Sokolov, the Russian deputy minister for... MORE

Russia has been threating those European states that have continued to deliver natural gas to Ukraine after Russia has cut its own supplies to the vulnerable Eastern European country. More recently, some progress has been made in the Russia-Ukraine gas talks being mediated by the... MORE

Big guns have mostly remained silent in eastern Ukraine last week, but diplomatic battles at the United Nations General Assembly have not shown any recess. Russia used to be able to score some easy points at this seasonal show by denouncing the United States’ unilateralism... MORE

Belarusian analysts continue to assess the change in the international order, driven by the crisis in Ukraine, while Belarus’s relations with the West continue to gradually improve. To some extent, these phenomena are inter-related, and Russia’s worsening image in the eyes of the West may... MORE