United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, met for the first time in person on May 19, 2021, in Reykjavik, Iceland, on the sidelines of the Arctic Council ministerial. Their get-together represented an attempt to deescalate mounting... MORE

A precarious political standoff continues unabated in the Republic of Moldova, where the Russia-funded Party of Socialists (PSRM) desperately clings to power while trying to obstruct the conduct of snap parliamentary elections. The most recent development in this saga was the apparent stalling by the... MORE

On May 12, Ukrainian Defense Minister Andrii Taran stated that, for now, his country did not face any immediate danger of a Russian invasion through neighboring Belarus. Nonetheless, he assured that Kyiv was “meticulously monitoring the situation” and evaluating available plans for responding to such... MORE

On April 29, a conflict broke out on Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan’s shared border in the fertile and heavily populated Fergana Valley region, purportedly to force Tajikistani border troops to dismantle locally installed surveillance cameras. But the incident quickly devolved into intense brawling and a small-scale... MORE

On May 19, one month will pass since the United States revoked its suspension of sanctions against several Belarusian public companies, mostly from the petrochemical industry (BelTA, April 20; State.gov, April 19). Despite the 45-day wind-down period established, it seems that the resuming restrictions have... MORE

Ukrainian law enforcement authorities have detained Viktor Medvedchuk, head of the pro-Russia parliamentary opposition, to prosecute him on treason charges (see EDM, May 13). President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has publicly hailed (President.gov.ua, May 14) the move against this personal protégé of Russian President Vladimir Putin; and... MORE

Russia has traditionally excelled at exploiting crises in the Middle East as a way to boost its own global stature, but the sharp escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in recent weeks has left Moscow uncharacteristically muted. At the United Nations Security Council, Russia ceded the... MORE

On May 15, Russia will assume the rotating two-year chairmanship of the Arctic Council, a role President Vladimir Putin has already said Moscow will use to advance his country’s interests in the High North (see EDM, February 17, March 2, April 22). Initially, Russian moves... MORE

On May 12, Ukraine’s General Prosecutor’s Office detained Viktor Medvedchuk, pending his trial for multiple alleged criminal activities. His legal status as of now is that of “suspect,” pending the change to “accused.” Medvedchuk’s main alleged accomplice, Taras Kozak (member of parliament with Medvedchuk’s party),... MORE

Belarus’s political crisis involves four principal actors. Two of them are domestic: the political regime, headed by President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, and the protest movement, whose leaders are currently in Lithuanian, Polish and Latvian exile. Two more actors are external: Russia and the collective West. At... MORE