The annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (May 24–26) managed to attract more high-level foreign guests than could be expected considering Russia’s stagnant economy and relative lack of interest from international investors. Arguably, the organizers should have expressed gratitude for this success to United States... MORE

Azerbaijan’s Defense Industry (DI) Minister Yaver Jamalov said, on April 27, that 89 percent of domestic DI output during the first quarter of 2018 was made up of special-purpose defense products, some of which are exported to more than ten countries. He added that this... MORE

Following Vladimir Putin’s reelection to a fourth term as president, Russian authorities officially announced the final composition of the “new” government last Friday, May 18. And several days earlier, former finance minister (2000–2011) Alexei Kudrin was promoted chief of the parliamentary budgetary watchdog Accounts Chamber... MORE

The Ukrainian government will resume its privatization campaign in October, the acting head of the local privatization body, the State Property Fund, Vitaly Trubarov, announced on May 10. Speaking after a meeting of the cabinet of Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, which discussed privatization, Trubarov said... MORE

In the past two months, the Russian government twice warned Latvian authorities that it was planning to conduct missile tests over Latvia’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the Baltic Sea. Yet, in both cases (April 4–6 and April 17–19), Russia never actually shot off any... MORE

Turkmenistan’s President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow visited the Caspian shore, on May 2, to inaugurate the Turkmenbashi International Seaport. The new $1.5 billion facility, Berdimuhamedow told attendees, is important not only for Turkmenistan but the wider region as well. It promises to become an important link in... MORE

It could be assumed that the intensifying trade war between the United States and China would cause economic slowdown in China and result, in the long run, in the drastic reduction of Chinese imports of energy resources from Kazakhstan. But in his recent interview to... MORE

The United States Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC), whose responsibility is to enforce US sanctions against foreign countries and nationals, rolled out a new package of economic restrictions against Russia, on April 6. Following its illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, Russia has... MORE

Ukraine has been exerting considerable effort over the last several years to forge closer links across the Black Sea with Turkey, which Kyiv views as a counterbalance to Russia in the region. The two countries’ leaders have been meeting regularly of late. Turkish President Recep... MORE

Since 1991, two key questions have dominated discussions of the fate of the Caspian Sea: First, how will it be divided now that there are five littoral states rather than two, as was the case in Soviet times? And second, will this landlocked body of... MORE