Latest Articles about Foreign Policy
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Belarus Builds Relations With Turkey as Russian Ambassador to Minsk Comes Under Fire
Last week, Belarus’s President Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s visited Turkey (April 16) and, three days later, delivered his annual report to the parliament and the Belarusian people (April 19). Following negotiations with his Turkish counterpart, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Lukashenka pledged to boost bilateral trade from $1... MORE
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Russia Punishing Ukraine After the Presidential Election
The Kremlin is disappointed and angry with the Ukrainian presidential election’s landslide winner, Volodymyr Zelensky. The president-elect may have over-fulfilled Moscow’s forecasts by defeating the incumbent, President Petro Poroshenko, by 73 percent to 25 percent in the April 21 runoff (Ukraiynska Pravda, April 22). Moscow... MORE
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Russian Proxy Diplomacy in Syria: Crimea and Sevastopol
As the war in Syria appears to wind down, the Kremlin is shifting its focus to rebuilding the country and reestablishing social order there based on Russia’s vision and interests. Importantly, Moscow is evidently transferring the responsibility for this effort down to the level of... MORE
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The Standoff Over the Myitsone Dam Project in Myanmar: Advantage China
Introduction—China’s Stalled Dam Project in Myanmar On January 12th, the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in Myanmar issued a statement warning Myanmar that if it failed to resolve the dispute over the stalled Myitsone Hydropower Dam project in Myanmar’s northern state of... MORE
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Moscow Wants to Have It Both Ways on Montreux Convention
Moscow wants to have it both ways on the Montreux Convention, which governs naval passage through the Turkish Straits (the Bosporus and the Dardanelles), casting itself as a supporter of this agreement when it works to its advantage but at the same time ignoring and... MORE
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Russia Undecided and Apprehensive About Elections in Ukraine
The second round of the presidential elections in Ukraine, held last Sunday (April 21), was a rather unconventional democratic exercise. And for millions of keen followers in Russia, who looked at it through the distorting lens of their mainstream media, it was oddly disconcerting. For... MORE
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Gazprom Restarts Imports From Turkmenistan After a Long Halt (Part One)
On April 15, Gazprom resumed imports of natural gas from Turkmenistan to Russia via the Central Asia–Center pipeline system, after a complete halt of more than three years (Gazprom.com, Oilgas.gov.tm, April 15). The resumption follows three rounds of negotiations by Gazprom’s CEO, Aleksei Miller, with... MORE
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Gazprom Resumes Imports of Turkmen Gas After Three-Year Break
The spokesperson for Gazprom, Sergey Kupriyanov, stated, on April 15, that the company had resumed gas imports from Turkmenistan (News Central Asia, April 16). His announcement was immediately confirmed by a statement from TurkmenGaz, Turkmenistan’s state natural gas company (Oilgas.gov.tm, April 15). Discussion on the... MORE
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Russian Opposition to Putin’s War in Syria Grows Despite Kremlin Propaganda Effort
Many have been struck by the fact that Russians have largely not actively protested against President Vladimir Putin’s military actions in Syria, unlike against his war in Ukraine. It has been suggested that, perhaps, this reflects the fact that Russians know far more about Ukraine... MORE
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Moscow Touts the Threat of Direct East-West Confrontation
The independent pollster Levada Tsentr regularly tests Russians’ attitudes toward former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, and it recently published a report showing that love, admiration and respect for Stalin is now the highest it has been since 2000. Some 70 percent of Russians currently see... MORE