That President Xi Jinping and his faction will dominate the 20th Party Congress is apparent from the Politburo announcement that the week-long, five-yearly conclave will take place on October 16. The Politburo meeting, which was held on August 30, said that the guiding principle of... MORE

As anticipated well ahead of the curve (see EDM, July 21, 22), Russia has missed the September 11 target date for staging annexation “referendums” in Ukraine’s occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. Moscow and the local authorities it installed in both regions waited until early September... MORE

On November 12, 2021, at the eighth (and final) summit of the Turkic Council in Istanbul, Turkey, the group’s name was changed to the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) and Turkmenistan was admitted as an observer state (Turkkon.org, accessed July 20). Simultaneously, the document “View... MORE

On July 15, speaking during a session of the Russian State Duma, Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov elaborated on the need to take a turn “from absolutist market-type industrial policy toward a policy aimed at securing [Russia`s] industrial sovereignty.” In his speech, Manturov said that... MORE

The long-promised Ukrainian counteroffensive in the south has not yet delivered any breakthrough, but it still signifies a critical turning point for the war: Russia cannot hope to win by sticking to the pattern of trench warfare and artillery duels. Some “patriotic” commentators have suggested... MORE

In less than a year, parliamentary and presidential elections will be held in Türkiye. Nevertheless, this time the odds will be quite different for the ruling Justice and Development Party. Current economic indicators do not favor Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government due to skyrocketing inflation and... MORE

The presidents of Serbia and Kosovo, Aleksandar Vučić and Albin Kurti, respectively, failed to reach an agreement on August 18 during bilateral talks hosted by the European Union in Brussels. The negotiations specifically concerned vehicle license plates and travel documents. After the meeting, EU High... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. As reports come in of massive explosions at an ammunition depot in Crimea, the prospects for effectively increasing ammunition production in Russia are unclear (Meduza, August 16). Overall, the costs of replenishing ammunition at the current rate of... MORE

On August 14, the Ukrainian town of Popasna (Luhansk Oblast) was hit by US-produced and Ukraine-operated M142 HIMARS complexes, reportedly causing severe damage to the locally headquartered private military company (PMC), the Wagner Group (Mil.in.ua, August 14). As a result of the attack, more than... MORE

Most countries are slowly recovering from the disastrous demographic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, but Russia is not. Instead, as new data shows, the Russian Federation has resumed its long-term demographic decline (see EDM, September 13, 2016), a trend likely to intensify and profoundly affect... MORE