Even as the commercial space sector grows quickly in the United States as well as in Europe, China, Japan, India and other countries, Russia continues to lack a robust approach to advancing in this area. The Russian government has for years been declaring an interest... MORE

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s interview with French television channel France 24 late last month (September 28) highlighted both current and future perspectives for bilateral relations between the two countries. At the same time, it sent a signal to Armenia, which has long presumed to have... MORE

The Cossack revivalist movement in southern Russia (and beyond) since the collapse of the Soviet Union is marked by two parallel tendencies. On the one hand, there is Cossack activism based on appeals to ancestral identity. This is geared not merely toward the revitalization of... MORE

On October 7, the European Parliament (EP) passed a resolution demanding that the European Union (EU) impose the fifth package of economic sanctions on Belarus, including additional sectors, such as metallurgy, woodworking, and chemical. According to the EP, the sanctions should affect “all remaining uncovered... MORE

According to various reports, members of Russia’s notorious Wagner Private Military Company (PMC) have been transported to Mali to render assistance to the local interim government (Rosbalt.ru, September 27). Given the presence of Russian mercenaries in other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa (Ifri.org, September 11, 2020),... MORE

At a time when the efforts of Russia, Turkey and Iran to expand their influence in the South Caucasus have received attention internationally, the ongoing moves by China to solidify its role in Georgia have slid under the radar. Nonetheless, Georgia promises to give Beijing... MORE

Interest in privatizing space operations by Western companies such as SpaceX and Virgin Galactic has now reached the former Soviet republic of Ukraine, which, for the moment, is focused on technological payloads rather than manned spaceflight. Unfortunately for advocates of Ukraine’s aerospace capabilities, on September... MORE

For several years, food prices have been rising in Russia, forcing the population to purchase ever cheaper products (Profile.ru, September 20). The government has tried to rein in prices, while avoiding having those top-down interventions lead to the empty store shelves that were a feature... MORE

As a fairly small (population-wise) country squeezed between Russia and the European Union, Belarus is destined to be a geopolitical tuning fork, whose reactions and demeanor, if properly understood, provide valuable feedback to the policies of its more powerful neighbors. Thus, one can observe that... MORE

Angered by Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s repressive moves and desirous of being on the right side of history, Western governments have imposed increasingly tough sanctions on Belarus (see EDM, May 18, June 30, August 10). But to a remarkable degree, they have restrained from taking even harsher... MORE