President Alyaksandr Lukashenka conducted a press conference for Ukrainian journalists in Minsk, on September 26. Compared to Lukashenka’s more regular face-to-face contacts with the Russian media, the scale of this briefing was decidedly smaller. Whereas the 2016 press conference for Russian journalists involved 80 reporters... MORE

The Kremlin has reason to celebrate as Russian foreign policy recently registered several significant successes across Europe’s East. First, following almost three decades of resistance, Belarus ostensibly agreed to a number of important joint institutions with Russia, pushing bilateral integration forward, with Minsk as the... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. *To read Part Two, please click here. On September 18, in the Minsk Contact Group, the Ukrainian delegation, headed by former president Leonid Kuchma, declined to negotiate with Russia and Donetsk-Luhansk toward codifying the Steinmeier Formula into an... MORE

In war, as has often been observed, “truth is the first casualty.” But it is also a fact that after any war, truth regarding that conflict is often again sacrificed and new myths arise. Seldom has that been more apparent than in the case of... MORE

September 27 will mark 15 years since the opening of the first Confucius Institute in South Korea in 2004. Today, over 500 of these Chinese government-funded centers operate in more than 150 countries worldwide. Many of them plan to celebrate the occasion as part of... MORE

Bucharest’s Road to Beijing Goes through Washington As with many other Eastern and Central European nations, Romania has consistently considered its relationship with the United States to be a privileged one: a strategic partnership meant to mitigate the risks of a neighboring assertive Russia. Nonetheless,... MORE

In the first week of September, a “United Front Organizations Special Symposium” (统一战线组织专题研讨会, Tongyi Zhanxian Zuzhi Zhuanti Yantaohui) was held in Beijing. Under the official slogan of “Forging Synergy and Promoting Consensus” (凝心聚力, 增进共识 / Ning Xin Juli, Zengjin Gongshi), this meeting brought together representatives... MORE

In October 2013, President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) unveiled the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), an ambitious plan to build infrastructure and improve transport connectivity in more than 60 countries across Asia and beyond. Since that time, the BRI has... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here. The Minsk One and Minsk Two “agreements” (September 2014 and February 2015) dictated to Ukraine to accept a constitutional special status for the Russian-controlled Donetsk-Luhansk territory; to amnesty those criminally involved in seizing local administrations there; and to... MORE

Amid speculation of mounting tensions in Russian-Belarusian relations (see EDM, September 9, 16), the two allies’ militaries conducted their quadrennial Union Shield (Shchit Soyuza) exercise last week (September 13–19). Along with the better-publicized West (Zapad) strategic-operational exercises (see EDM, September 20, October 6, 10, 2017),... MORE