*To read Part One, please click here.   While China remains the most active player among non-Arctic nations, other Asian actors, such as India (see Part One in EDM, May 7) and Japan (the world`s third largest economy) are playing an increasingly visible role in... MORE

Expanding its military presence in the Arctic is currently one of the main priorities of Russian defense policy. Cold War–era military bases, mothballed after 1991, have, in recent years, been reactivated, renovated and expanded, while additional ones are being built. In Soviet times, attack and... MORE

On April 24, the Ukrainian Parliament adopted a first reading of the bill “On Inland Water Transport,” finally codifying important planned reforms pertaining to riverine transportation in Ukraine—in particular, on the Dnipro River (Mtu.gov.ua, April 24). This new law creates a framework regulating the functioning... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   While Mikheil Saakashvili served as governor of Ukraine’s Odesa Province (May 2015–November 2016), the region presented the former Georgian president with hurdles not only to system reforms but even to rational management as such. Those obstacles included:... MORE

Georgia’s former president, Mikheil Saakashvili, has accepted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s offer to chair the Executive Committee of Ukraine’s National Council for Reforms (Ukrinform, May 7). Taking up the new challenge, Saakashvili promised to draw on the experience of his universally recognized achievements in Georgia... MORE

The pandemic and the partially related collapse in oil prices will lead to the highest budget deficit in the Russian regions for the past 20 years, despite the support of the central government, says a recent assessment by the global credit rating agency S&P. Regions... MORE

Belarus has been preoccupied in recent days with President Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s decision not to cancel this year’s annual May 9 Victory Day military parade, which marks arguably the country’s most important public holiday. “I must say that we cannot cancel the parade,” declared Lukashenka on... MORE

Among the non-Arctic states seeking partnership with Russia as a means to increase their presence in the northern polar region, China has become by far the most visible player (see EDM, May 20, 2019). Yet, other emerging actors—India and Japan—should be noted. On January 14,... MORE

With nearly 2,000 officially confirmed COVID-19 cases, the Republic of Dagestan is currently the most badly hit territory in the North Caucasus. Furthermore, the republic has the fifth-largest number of cases in the Russian Federation. Some Dagestani municipalities report that they cannot cope with the... MORE

In mid-April, Russia offered Moldova, at the latter’s insistence, an inter-governmental loan of €200 million ($217 million) on soft terms. Moldova’s Socialist-led government had planned this loan mainly for road construction, before the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic broke out. At present and in the near-to-medium term,... MORE