At this year’s World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev told the Russian news agency RIA Novosti that transporting Russian natural gas via the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) is technically possible but that Azerbaijan has never received an official proposal for such... MORE

The stalemate in Belarusian-Russian negotiations over oil and natural gas continues. Following President Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s emotional speech in the city of Shklov, in which he openly complained that Moscow was only willing to make concessions in exchange for Belarus losing its sovereignty (see EDM, January... MORE

Belarus is officially Russia’s closest ally. In addition to joint membership in the Moscow-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO, a regional defense alliance) and Eurasian Economic Union, Belarus and Russia together form a Union State—a loose confederative structure initially intended to transform into a federation... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   Kyiv and Moscow finalized a bilateral deal to transport Russian natural gas to Europe through Ukrainian territory (see Part One in EDM, January 22). Although the new five-year agreement, signed on December 30, 2019, represented a compromise... MORE

On January 21, media outlets reported that Belarus had purchased 80,000 tons of crude oil from Norway (Tut.by, January 21, 2020). A Norwegian tanker delivered this oil to the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda, from where it will proceed by rail to Naftan, one of two... MORE

President Vladimir Putin’s surprise cabinet reshuffle at the start of the year (see EDM, January 16, 2020) raised at least two important questions pertaining to the Russian hydrocarbon sector: who would be named the next energy minister, and what policies the new government would pursue... MORE

The stalemate continues regarding Russia’s oil and natural gas prices for Belarus and the ensuing lack of long-term delivery contracts. No less newsworthy is the wide selection of opinions about the deadlocked negotiations. President Alyaksandr Lukashenka claims that Russia wants to sell Belarus oil at... MORE

On January 1, the Gas Transmission System Operator of Ukraine (GTSOU) LLC began transporting Russian natural gas to Europe under a new five-year transit agreement (Gordonua.com, January 1, 2020). This contract (consistent with European Union regulations) was signed by representatives of the Ukrainian energy firm... MORE

In a grand ceremony in Istanbul, on January 9, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, officially opened the TurkStream natural gas pipeline, running from Russia to Turkey along the Black Sea seabed (TRT World, January 9, 2020). The pipeline is... MORE

The top stories on Belarus from the past year collectively tended to feature four major interrelated refrains, listed in descending order of frequency: relations with Russia; the national character, including national identity, collective memory, and a growing sense of the need to defend Belarusian sovereignty;... MORE