On March 29, the Polish government announced that it will unilaterally place an embargo on Russian coal imports within two months (Rzeczpospolita, March 29); and a day later, it declared that Polish refineries will “do whatever they can” to terminate Russian crude supplies by the... MORE

Moscow has opened a new front in its effort to find enough soldiers to fight in Ukraine (see EDM, March 16): it is ordering Central Asian immigrants in Russia who have taken Russian citizenship to appear for induction, and it is offering citizenship and high... MORE

Russian forces invaded southern Ukraine on February 24, 2022, from two convergent directions, Crimea and Donetsk, both already occupied since 2014 (see EDM, April 6). Russia’s second invasion resulted, by mid-March 2022, in the capture of Ukraine’s entire Kherson province, a considerable part of the... MORE

How long will Belarus remain a pariah in the eyes of its neighbors? According to Yury Drakakhrust of Radio Liberty, this depends on whether the Belarusian army enters the Russo-Ukrainian war and, above all, on that conflict’s outcome. If Russia emerges weakened from this war,... MORE

Moscow-based commentators who remain convinced that Russia saved the current government in Kazakhstan by intervening there in January (see EDM, January 19, 21) are outraged that the Central Asian country is not supporting Russia in the Ukrainian conflict but rather publicly taking positions that challenge... MORE

Combat operations on all key fronts of the Russo-Ukrainian war continue non-stop, even if without decisive action, but the transit of Russian natural gas to Europe through Ukraine’s pipeline system persists without interruptions. This may appear aberrant given President Vladimir Putin’s well-documented propensity to “weaponize”... MORE

Pressure is growing around the world to cut off international purchases of Russian oil because of the Kremlin’s war of aggression against Ukraine. In recent days, the government of Poland announced its intentions to do just that, in addition to self-embargos on Russian coal and... MORE

Today (March 31), President Vladimir Putin announced that the Russian Armed Forces will draft 134,500 men over the next three months and release a similar number of soldiers who have completed their service (Pravo.gov.ru, March 31). Russia has always faced problems with its twice-a-year draft:... MORE

In a press briefing on March 11, Georgian Interior Minister Vakhtang Gomelauri revealed that approximately 25,000–30,000 Russian citizens had arrived and stayed in Georgia following Russia’s launch of full-scale military aggression against Ukraine (Kommersant, March 11). Most of these individuals were escaping asphyxiating Western sanctions... MORE

Introduction The unprecedented sanctions imposed on Russia in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine will devastate its economy, but the extent of the severity partially depends on China and how much economic aid it is prepared to extend. In the short term, surging commodity... MORE