When veterans of the Soviet war in Afghanistan—the so-called “Afgantsy”—and veterans of the two Russian campaigns in Chechnya returned to their homes, many had a difficult time fitting back into a peaceful life. Some used the military skills they had acquired to engage in various... MORE

Both directly and indirectly, Russia’s ongoing “special military operation” in Ukraine (launched by the Kremlin on February 24) triggers anxieties across the border in Belarus. Thus, on March 30, the authorities apprehended a group of perpetrators of the so-called rail-track war (see EDM, April 6),... MORE

Transnistria, the breakaway Slavic-majority region in Moldova, usually attracts attention only when Moscow seeks to use to limit Moldovan moves toward unification with Romania or membership in European institutions. At times, analysts also point to it as an illustrative model for Russian expansion or Moscow’s... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. Russia’s 2022 re-invasion of Ukraine resulted, by mid-March, in the capture of Ukraine’s entire Kherson province, a considerable part of the Zaporyzhzhia province, and the littoral portion of the Donetsk province. Russia has decided to separate this latter... MORE

Russia’s full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine, which commenced on February 24 (Kremlin.ru, February 24), pushed the world’s largest advanced economies to introduce several rounds of increasing economic sanctions against the Russian Federation (Meduza, March 8). While the initial impact of those punitive measures seemed... MORE

Russia has revised its war plan multiple times during the, so far, seven-week-long, ill-conceived large-scale invasion of Ukraine, yet it still remains incompatible with both tactical imperatives and political ambitions. The consecutive revisions themselves have been flawed in different ways: if the initial “Blitzkrieg” design... MORE

Introduction During Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to Kathmandu on March 25-27, China and Nepal signed nine agreements covering an array of fields including a technical assistance for a cross-border railway feasibility study, economic, and technical cooperation, and COVID-19 vaccine assistance to Nepal (Kathmandu... MORE

Introduction The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is closely monitoring the rapidly developing political crisis in Pakistan. The current upheaval stems from the introduction in Parliament of a no-confidence vote against Prime Minister Imran Khan, and his subsequent allegation that the motion is due to... MORE

On March 31, Anatoly Bibilov, the so-called “president” of the separatist Georgian region of South Ossetia—occupied by Russia since August 2008—announced that the local authorities would hold a popular referendum on whether to join the Russian Federation. “I believe that unification with Russia is our... MORE

India and the Taliban: Is a ‘Soft Power’ Opening Emerging? Sudha Ramachandran On February 22, a convoy of 50 trucks carrying a consignment of 2,500 tons of wheat set off from India via Pakistan to Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan. The consignment, which is the first... MORE